THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF 

NORTH  CAROLINA 

AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


THE  COLLECTION  OF 
NORTH  CAROLINIANA 

PRESENTED  BY 


Belle  P.   Scharnagel 

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FOR  USE  ONLY  IN 
THE  NORTH  CAROLINA  COLLEC 


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Collection  of  jRottg  Carolmiana 
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J.  R.  PHILLIPS 


INTRODUCTION 

After  earnest  soliciation  I  have  prevailed  on  my 
father  to  write  out  some  of  the  events  of  his  romantic 
and  eventful  career.  One  main  ommission  I  see  in  his 
sketch  is  that  he  has  nowhere  mentioned  the  many 
deeds  of  loving  kindness  he  has  shown  to  the  needy 
and  numerous  gifts  to  the  church  and  to  every  deserv- 
ing person  or  object  that  came  to  his  notice,  and  they 
have  been  many.  In  his  humility  he  follows  the  in- 
junction ''Let  not  thy  left  hand  know  what  thy  right 
hand  doeth".  In  the  pioneer  days  of  Marion  county 
he  acted  as  physician,  dentist,  arbitrator  of  disputes, 
and  business  and  spiritual  adviser.  His  time, 
patience,  and  power  have  seemed  to  be  unlimited.  A 
keen  sense  of  humor  and  ability  to  tell  and  enjoy  a 
joke  have  made  him  friends  and  made  his  companion- 
ship delightful. 

His  immense  energy  and  dynamic  force  have 
manifested  themselves,  not  only  in  a  material  way, 
but  more  than  all  in  a  religious  devotion  and  ap- 
plication of  the  teachings  of  the  Bible.  He  read 
to  and  with  his  children  and  encouraged  us  to  mem- 
orize verses  and  chapters  from  the  sacred  volume. 
He  taught  us  to  sing.  How  well  I  remember  the 
family  group  sitting  by  the  fire.  My  father  in  the 
center  leading  and  beating  time  to  the  music,  every 
child  imitating  in  tone  and  gesture.  My  mother,  even 
then,  was  generally  busy  and  would  sing  her  songs 
while  cooking,  washing,  ironing  or  mending.  I  have 
never  heard  sweeter  music  than  her  low  tones  on 
"Come,  come,  come,  to  the  Savior,"  O  love  divine  how 
sweet  thou  art,"  and  other  old  songs  of  Zion.  Our 
attendance  at  religious  service  was  just  as  regular  as 
the  Lord's  Day  came  with  every  extra  opportunity  the 
time  and  locality  afforded.  After  all  these  years  and 
as  they  grew  old  their  lives  prove  that  ''The  path  of 
the  just  is  as  the  shining  light  that  shineth  more  and 
more  into  the  perfect  day." 


"Blessed  is  the  man  that  walketh  not  in  the  council 
of  the  ungodly  nor  standeth  in  the  way  of  sinners,  nor 
sitteth  in  the  seat  of  the  scornful  but  his  delight  is  in 
the  law  of  the  Lord  and  in  His  law  doth  he  meditate 
day  and  night.  He  shall  be  like  a  tree  planted  by  the 
rivers  of  waters,  that  bringeth  forth  his  fruit  in  his 
season.  His  leaf  also  shall  not  wither  and  whatso- 
ever he  doeth  shall  prosper." 

I  could  not  find  a  passage  anywhere  that  in  every 
word,  phrase,  and  sentence  more  aptly  describes  my 
Father's  life  than  the  first  Psalm.  As  the  years  have 
passed  he  has  grown  from  grace  and  his  saintliness  and 
Christliness  have  ever  increased.  His  life  is  and  al- 
ways will  be  an  inspiration  and  benediction  to  us,  his 
children. 

MRS  BELLE  PHILLIPS  SCHARNAGEL. 
Tuscaloosa,  Alabama,  July  26,  1923. 


MY     LIFE     STORY 

By  J.  R.  Phillips 

The  subject  of  this  sketch  was  born  on  the  18th  of 
October,  1837,  in  Jonesville,  Surrey  Co.,  North  Carolina. 
My  father's  name  was  John  Spencer  Phillips,  a  son  of 
Phillip  Phillips  and  Susannah  Spencer.  Phillip  Phillips 
was  one  of  five  brothers  and  five  sisters  who  emigra- 
ted from  Scotland  and  settled  in  New  Jersey.  My 
father  was  born  in  1810  and  died  in  1844.  He  was  af- 
flicted when  a  boy  with  rheumatism  and  white  swelling 
which  caused  a  stiffening  in  the  joint  of  his  right  leg. 
He  could  not  straighten  this  limb,  and  had  to  walk  on 
crutches.  His  parents  bound  him  as  an  apprentice  and 
he  learned  the  tailor's  trade.  My  father's  father  died 
before  my  remembrance,  but  I  well  remember  his 
mother. 

My  mother,  Susan  Hastings  Roberts,  was  born  in 
1818,  and  died  at  my  home  in  Alabama  in  1882.  She 
had  been  blind  five  years.  My  mother's  parents  were 
John  Roberts  and  Nancy  Cockerhan.  John  Roberts 
was  the  youngest  of  sixteen  children.  His  father  was 
Olive  Branch  Roberts  a  veteran  of  the  Revolutionary 
war.  Grand  mother  Roberts  lived  to  be  over  a  hundred 
years  old,  and  stayed  alone  in  her  own  house  after  the 
death  of  Grandfather. 

Aunt  Jennie  Roberts,  sister  of  Olive,  acted  as  a 
scout  for  Francis  Marion  during  the  Revolutionary  war. 
Women  often  assisted  the  patriots  as  scouts,  riding 
wild  horses  which  they  took  up  when  needed.  Aunt 
Jennie  swam  Yadkin  River  to  carry  a  message,  hidden 
on  her  person.  She  was  crippled  in  the  service.  I 
might  have  been  a  Secessionist  but  for  Aunt  Jennie's 
influence.  She  told  me  so  much  of  the  hardships  and 
privations  of  our  forefathers  to  gain  American  inde- 
pendence. 

I  was  about  seven  years  old  when  my  father  died, 
leaving  Mother  the  full  burden  of  bringing  up  a  family 

5 


of  small  children.  She  taught  us  habits  of  industry, 
thrift  and  morality.  A  few  books  she  gave  me,  besides 
the  Bible,  which  she  taught  us  daily.  One  book  was 
"The  Discontented  Squirrel",  another  was  "Thomas 
and  Harry"  and  another  was  "Thrifty  and  Unthrifty". 
In  each  of  these  virtue  was  rewarded  and  vice  punished. 
She  encouraged  me  to  hear  certain  cases  tried  at  court 
at  Rockford,  the  county  seat  of  Surrey  Co.  One  trial 
was  that  of  a  prominent  singing  master,  named  Todd, 
who  was  convicted  of  passing  counterfeit  money. 
Grandfather  got  some  of  it.  Todd  was  whipped  thirty 
nine  lashes;  he  hollowed  each  time  the  lash  struck:  "O 
Lord!  O  Lord!"  One  old  man  kicked  at  the  sheriff 
when  he  was  whipped.  I  saw  a  woman  named  Elisa- 
beth Pig,  tried  for  child  murder.  John  A.  Gilmore, 
Attorney,  cleared  her.  At  court  whiskey  and  brandy 
were  sitting  around  in  buckets.  These  things  made  a 
lasting  impression  on  me.  Father's  people  would  drink 
no  whiskey,  nor  sell  negroes.  They  were  too  conscien- 
tious to  trade  in  these  things.  Mother's  people  would 
do  both. 

When  Father  died.  Mother  turned  me  over  to  a 
trusty  negro  who  taught  me  to  work.  His  name  was 
Gabe.  I  loved  him.  He  was  a  good  religious  negro 
and  wanted  me  to  do  right.  I  would  work  with  him 
through  the  day  and  many  nights  we  would  'possum 
hunt.  He  slept  in  the  kitchen  and  would  skin  his  game 
at  night.  I  would  enjoy  v/atching  him.  Often  I  would 
get  sleepy  and  crawl  up  in  his  bed  and  sleep  there  all 
night.  Mother  would  laugh  at  me  for  sleeping  with 
Gabe.  Mother  sold  out  and  moved  to  Fannin  Co., 
Georgia,  when  I  was  about  fifteen  years  old.  I  never 
went  to  school  any  more. 

I  was  the  oldest  of  five  children,  by  my  mother's 
first  husband.  Thomas,  the  next  oldest,  fell  off  of  a 
log,  where  he  and  I  were  playing,  while  we  were  on  a 
visit  to  Uncle  Ambrose  Roberts,  Mother's  brother. 
This  resulted  in  his  death.     The  next  older  was  a  girl, 

6 


Sister  Ann.     She  married  Dolph  Grey.     They  moved 
to  the  Cherokee  Nation,  near  Tahleqhuh,  Indian  Terri- 
tory.  Here  they  reared  a  large  family,  and  are  still  liv- 
ing there.   Mother's  youngest  child  was  a  boy,  his  name 
was  Spencer.  He  died  in  infancy.  The  one  younger  than 
Sister  Ann  was  named  Micagah.   He  was  Mother's  pet. 
He  was  a  mighty  good  boy     There  was  no  mischief  or 
foolishness  about  him,  while  I  was  considered  a  mean, 
mischievious  chap,  who    delighted   in    worrying    good 
boys,  mostly  because  they  would  not  engage  with  me 
in  mischief.     I  am  inclined  to  think  that  at  times  he  had 
a  grudge  at  me  yet  in  remembrance  of  the  treatment 
I  gave  him  in  our  boyhood  days.     I  remember  on  one 
occasion  my  mother  would  spend  the  night  with  her 
mother,  during  her  last  illness,  a  distance  of  three  miles. 
He    wanted    to    go    with    her.      On    one    occasion    I 
went  with  her  to  the  gate  where  the  road  led  out  of  the 
field,  to  open  the  gate  for  her  as  she  was  on  horseback. 
He  followed  along  crying  and  said  he  was  going  too, 
and  refused  to  go  back  with  me.     Mother  told  me  to 
take  him  back  with  me  if  I  had  to  drag  him  back,  as  that 
was  no  place  for  children.     I  had  to  throw  him  down 
and  hold  him  until  she  was  gone.     He  was  in  such  a  pas- 
sion that  he  tried  to  curse  and  swear  but  did  not  make 
much  success  as  we  had  never  been  associated  with  that 
class.     I  had  to  drag  him  most  of  the  way  back.     He 
married  into  a  prominent  family  in  North  Carolina,  who 
were  distantly  related  to  the  Cherokee  Indians.     Soon 
after  his  marriage  he  moved  to  Indian  Territory  and 
got  possession  of  a  large  tract  of  that  fertile  land.     He 
reared  and  educated  a  large  family  of  children.     He 
gained  considerable  wealth  in    the    agricultural    and 
stock  raising  business.       During  the  days    of    the    oil 
boom,  they  all  accumulated  fortunes.     They  are  still 
in  that  country. 

About  this  time  Mother  married  the  second  time. 
She  had  two  girls  by  her  second  marriage.  The  oldest, 
Cenora,  moved  to  Oklahoma    and    died    there.     The 

7 


youngest  one,  Sarah,  still  lives  in  North  Carolina.  I 
was  obedient  to  her  husband,  and  we  got  along  all  right 
for  a  long  time  until  he  imposed  on  me,  I  thought,  and 
we  did  not  get  on  well  at  all  after  that.  I  ought  to  state 
that  Grandfather  Roberts  gave  me  a  nice  little  silver 
mounted  rifle  when  we  left  North  Carolina.  Mother 
was  fearful  that  there  would  be  serious  trouble  between 
us  and  told  me  that  I  could  go  out  and  work  for  myself. 
She  was  one  of  the  best  women,  I  thought,  in  the  world. 
I  never  remember  seeing  her  in  an  angry  humor,  nor 
heard  h*er  speak  an  unkind  word  of  any  one.  She  gave 
me  an  interest  in  a  small  piece  of  land  and  I  went  to 
work  and  built  me  a  log  house  and  lived  the  life  of  a 
bachelor.  I  set  out  an  orchard  and  went  to  farming. 
I  cannot  remember  my  exact  age  at  that  time  but  was 
a  little  over  sixteen,  I  think.  Those  lonesome  nights 
and  wet  days  I  spent  my  time  in  reading  and  learning 
to  play  on  a  fiddle  I  had  bought.  I  had  a  real  good 
time.  When  I  built  my  log  cabin  I  procured  a  large 
auger,  bored  the  holes,  at  the  proper  distance  apart,  in 
the  logs  of  the  house,  got  a  piece  of  timber  and  made 
bed  posts,  bored  two  holes  in  it  and  made  what  was 
known  as  a  Georgia  bedstead.  I  got  a  froe  and  rove 
out  boards  the  right  length  and  laid  them  across  some 
slats  and  weather  beams  to  put  my  bed  on.  I  made 
my  dining  table  from  the  same  material.  In  covering 
my  cabin  I  used  small  logs  a  little  longer  than  the  logs 
in  the  building  to  project  out  over  the  ends  for  weather 
protection  of  the  wall.  To  lay  my  four-foot  boards  on 
for  a  covering  the  last  log  across  the  building  at  the 
ends  was  a  little  longer  than  the  others.  I  then  laid  a 
piece  of  timber  on  for  the  boards  to  butt  against  a  prop- 
er distance  from  the  wall  to  protect  the  walls  from  the 
dripping  of  the  eaves,  then  placed  out  poles  on  the  top 
of  the  boards  a  proper  distance  apart  to  hold  the  boards 
in  place.  My  chimney,  I  made  of  what  was  then  called 
stick  and  dirt,  thus  my  house  was  finished  without  ex- 
pense of  buying  nails  as  I  had  no  money.     It  was  all  my 

8 


own  labor  except  some  of  my  good  neighbors  helped 
me  to  put  up  and  notch  down  the  logs  and  then  la:id 
weight  poles  on  the  boards  to  keep  them  in  place.  I 
had  a  few  hens  and  got  plenty  of  eggs  and  it  took  but 
a  few  minutes  to  cook  a  meal,  and  I  only  washed  dishes 
after  supper.  I  rarely  had  any  company  except  an- 
other bachelor  that  lived  a  few  miles  away.  He  would 
visit  occasionally.  I  was  advised  by  many  of  my 
friends  to  get  married  but  I  was  too  bashful  even  to 
think  of  such  a  thing. 


CHAPTER  II. 

But  I  have  left  out  some  things  that  occurred  while 
we  w^ere  in  Georgia.  Mother  sold  out  in  Georgia  and 
moved  back  into  North  Carolina.  We  only  had  to 
move  some  twelve  or  fifteen  miles  as  we  lived  near  the 
North  Carolina-Tennesee  line  and  we  moved  to  the  ex- 
treme western  corner  of  the  State.  It  was  only  one  and 
a  half  miles  from  our  house  to  the  corner  of  the  state 
where  Georgia,  Tennessee  and  North  Carolina  join. 
Before  Mother  sold  out  I  was  teaching  school  in  Geor- 
gia. I  was  then  about  fifteen  years  old.  The  family 
moved  but  left  me  there  to  finish  my  school.  I  did  not 
want  to  teach  but  through  the  solicitation  of  a  very 
prominent  man,  who  lived  near  the  school  house,  and 
who  promised  to  assist  me,  and  the  encouragement 
Mother  gave  me,  I  consented.  I  got  along  with  the 
school  fine  and  gave  good  satisfaction,  I  suppose.  The 
patrons  insisted  that  I  should  teach  for  them  again  and 
asked  me  to  name  my  price,  but  I  had  enough  of  school 
teaching.  The  family  I  boarded  with  had  three  girls, 
one  of  which  I  dearly  loved,  but  she  was  very  bashful 
as  well  as  myself  and  no  one  knew  that  I  loved  her  ex- 
cept myself,  as  I  never  told  her  nor  any  one  else. 

My  mother  had  not  finished  moving  when  my  school 
was  out.  The  cattle  had  not  been  moved  and  I  went 
with  a  hired  man  to  drive  the  cattle  in.  The  road  we 
traveled  went  up  a  creek  called  Hot  House.  There 
were  large  bottoms  and  fertile  lands  on  that  creek. 
Good  buildings  and  a  number  of  progressive  farmers 
lived  along  there.  As  we  were  passing  one  of  the 
houses  with  the  cattle  a  little  girl  was  crossing  the  road 
in  front  of  the  cattle.  She  tripped  across  the  road  and 
stopped  to  watch  the  cattle  pass  and  I  took  a  good  look 
at  her  and  thought  she  was  the  smartest  little  girl  I 
ever  saw.  I  kept  looking  back  at  her  until  we  got  out 
of  sight  and  she  remained  where  she  was,  looking  at  us. 
She  told  me  since  then  she  told  her  mother  that  she  had 
seen  her  boy.     Her  mother  told  her  she  was  foolish, 

10 


that  she  would  never  see  that  boy  again  that  was  driv- 
ing those  cattle.  While  I  was  looking  back  she  stood 
there  watching  us.  I  went  on  with  the  cattle  back 
home,  went  to  work  helping  to  clean  and  fence  in  lands 
in  this  newly  settled  land  v/here  there  were  no  improve- 
ments. 

This  part  of  the  state  was  then  called  the  New  Pur- 
chase of  North  Carolina,  which  had  been  bought  from 
the  Indians  and  was  being  sold  to  the  settlers  at  a  low 
price,  the  Indians  being  removed  to  the  West.  I  con- 
tinued to  work  on  here  until  this  trouble  came  up  be- 
tween Mother's  second  husband  and  myself.  I  went  to 
Duck  Town  and  worked  some  at  public  works  at  the 
copper  mines,  which  was  not  at  all  satisfactory  to  me. 
The  kind  of  society  there  was  not  the  kind  that  suited 
me  and  I  soon  got  enough  of  it  and  went  back  and  went 
to  work  on  the  land  before  mentioned,  near  my 
Mother's. 

There  were  two  or  three  girls  that  lived  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, one  of  which  I  fancied  very  much  but  I  was 
too  bashful  to  let  her  know  the  attachment  I  had  for 
her,  and  besides  Mother  wasn't  struck  on  her  by  any 
means.  I  had  an  associate  boy,  John  Newton  just  a 
little  older  than  I,  who  wanted  me  to  go  to  Hot  House 
creek  with  him  said  there  were  many  pretty  girls  over 
there  in  Georgia,  I  consented  to  go  with  him.  When 
I  remembered  the  girl  I  saw  when  driving  the  cattle, 
I  was  anxious  to  go  back  and  see  what  had  become  of 
her.  We  went  on  Sunday  to  Salem  Church,  a  Baptist 
meeting-house  on  Hot  House  near  the  place  where  the 
girl  in  question  lived.  In  those  days  the  women  occu- 
pied one  side  of  the  house  and  the  men  the  other  side. 
In  looking  over  the  woman's  side  of  the  house  the  first 
attraction  that  met  my  eyes  was  the  sweet  smile  of  the 
same  girl  I  had  met  while  driving  the  cattle  just  looking 
as  cute  and  pleasant  as  ever,  only  more  so.  While  the 
services  were  going  on  I  spent  my  time  in  gazing  at 
those  pleasing  eyes  and  her     beautiful     countenance 

11 


which  was  encouraging  to  me  to  note  that  she  seemed 
to  be  paying  more  attention  to  me  than  to  the  preacher 
or  any  thing  else  that  was  going  on.  So  that  day  was 
a  happy  day  to  me  but  I  was  too  bashful  to  even  lap-^ 
proach  her  after  the  services  or  to  seek  an  introduction, 
but  went  back  home  and  went  to  work  with  the  conso- 
lation that  I  would  go  back  to  the  next  meeting  which 
was  to  be  a  month  from  that  day. 

The  next  meeting  found  me  on  hand  promptly — on 
hand  at  the  same  place  and  I  met  the  same  pleasing 
countenance  as  before.  I  had  got  some  what  ac- 
quainted with  some  of  her  brothers  and  resolved  to  go 
home  with  them  after  services,  which  I  did  but  was  too 
bashful  to  attempt  to  have  any  thing  to  say  to  her. 
After  the  dinner  a  lot  of  the  young  folks  took  a  stroll 
down  into  the  meadow  to  pass  off  the  time.  She  had 
a  chum  who  was  a  great  talker  and  had  many  suitors 
and  wanted  all  the  boys  she  could  get  and  encouraged 
all  the  boys.  She  was  very  pretty  and  easy  to  get  ac- 
quainted with  while  she  the  girl  I  loved  did  not  have 
much  to  say  and  was  quite  timid.  I  had  a  pretty  good 
time  that  evening  with  the  pretty  girl  and  looking  at  the 
one  I  loved.  The  pretty  girl  walked  back  with  me  to 
the  house  in  preference  to  going  with  another  boy,  but 
without  my  solicitation.  The  one  I  loved  was  along. 
She  must  have  found  out  by  some  reason  that  she  was 
not  the  one  I  wished  to  be  with  from  her  actions  and 
talk.  I  only  got  a  chance  to  speak  a  few  words  to  the 
one  I  preferred  on  that  trip  as  the  other  girl  was  in  the 
way. 

The  next  trip  I  was  more  successful.  She  seemed 
to  be  not  so  shy  and  timid  as  before.  I  got  to  talk  some 
to  her  and  to  tell  her  that  I  wished  to  get  better  ac- 
quainted with  her.  I  left  with  the  promise  that  I  would 
visit  her,  which  seemed  to  please  her.  I  did  not  fail  to 
see  her  every  two  weeks  from  that  on.  I  would  go  on 
Sunday  morning  and  come  back  home  Sunday  night, 
some  times  during  the  night,  often  it  would  be  nearly 

12 


daylight  but  was  always  at  home  ready  to  go  to  work 
Monday  morning,  early.  I  kept  romping  around  with 
her  chum  all  along  during  our  courtship.  She  kept 
telling  my  girl  she  was  going  to  cut  her  out  and  my  girl 
would  tell  me  that  her  chum  was  prettier  than  she  and 
for  me  to  go  with  her.  I  told  her  if  she  desired  me  to 
do  so  I  would  if  she  would  let  me  do  as  I  wished  I 
would  not  and  that  settled  the  matter.  During  our 
courtship  a  very  prominent  young  man  in  that  vicinity 
told  me  he  was  going  to  cut  me  out.  I  insisted  on  him 
that  he  should  do  so  and  told  him  the  time  I  would  be 
there  and  he  was  on  hand  promptly  at  the  time.  There 
were  a  lot  of  young  folks  there  that  Sund-ay  4m¥«tg  fi 
good  time.  I  had  nothing  to  say  to  my  girl,  rather 
keeping  out  of  her  way  and  romping  with  the  others, 
giving  him  a  good  chance  which  I  wanted  him  to  have. 
When  bed  time  came  my  girl  was  arranging  beds  for 
the  company  so  all  could  have  a  place  to  sleep.  She 
had  a  brother  who  had  a  store  near  by  and  had  a  bed 
there  on  which  to  sleep.  She  told  my  rival  that  he 
would  have  to  go  with  her  brother  to  the  store  and 
sleep  with  him.  He  objected  and  wanted  to  stay  there 
as  he  had  a  lot  of  things  he  wished  to  talk  to  her  about 
and  had  come  on  purpose.  She  replied  to  him  that 
there  was  no  place  for  him  to  sleep  and  he  would  have 
to  go  on  with  her  brother — that  she  had  no  time  to  talk 
to  him.  He  took  his  medicine  all  right  and  told  me  he 
had  waited  too  long  but  she  was  the  sort  he  had  been 
looking  for.  Everything  went  on  pleasantly  after  that. 
My  mother  had  been  hearing  of  my  frequent  visits  to 
Hot  House  and  was  told  that  I  was  keeping  company 
with  the  pretty  before  referred  to.  She  objected  very 
seriously  and  remarked  to  me,  "If  you  will  keep  com- 
pany with  a  girl  why  don't  you  go  to  see  the  old  man 
Ballue's  girl."  She  said  she  would  not  give  her  for  a 
hundred  of  the  other.  I  smiled  and  told  her,  **0h, 
Mother  she  is  so  pretty." 

We  were  married  August,  LSS5.     We  diS  not  make 

13       1^^'Vf 


our  wedding  very  public.  I  went  over  there  that  day- 
alone  and  on  foot  the  nigh  way  over  the  mountains  and 
the  next  day  we  went  home.  Her  father  wanted  us  to 
ride  some  of  his  horses  but  after  consulting  over  the 
matter  we  concluded  to  go  on  foot  the  nigh  way,  asj 
there  would  be  no  one  to  take  the  horses  back.  We 
went  directly  to  my  hut  and  she  cooked  our  infair  din- 
ner. Some  one  had  told  mother  and  she  came  in  about 
the  time  our  dinner  was  over  and  was  greatly  pleased 
at  the  way  things  had  gone  as  I  had  brought  home  her 
preference  for  a  daughter.  She  gave  us  a  good  scolding 
for  not  coming  home  to  let  her  cook  our  dinner. 


14 


CHAPTER  III 

Things  went  on  smoothly  for  a  while.  Mother  had 
given  me  a  colt  but  it  was  too  young  to  work.  While 
I  was  working  at  the  copper  mines  for  wages,  I  bought 
a  horse,  a  nice  pony  which  suited  me  all  right.  The 
man  that  I  bought  it  from  told  me  that  he  was  six  years 
old  and  another  man  told  me  he  was  nine  which  dis- 
heartened me  as  I  thought  at  that  age  their  usefulness 
was  about  over.  I  was  determined  to  trade  him  off  and 
ran  up  with  a  horse  trader  that  showed  me  several 
objectional  points  in  my  horse  that  I  had  not  noticed 
before.  He  said  he  had  a  horse  that  was  just  six  years 
old  that  he  would  trade  me  for  mine  notwithstanding 
his  age  and  other  objectional  points  but  must  have  boot. 
I  traded  with  him,  had  no  money  but  he  said  it  was  all 
right  about  the  money  he  would  wait  with  me.  Pretty 
soon  after  I  got  the  new  horse  a  man  told  me  he  had  the 
big  head  and  was  no  good  and  I'd  better  get  rid  of  him. 
I  then  started  out  in  earnest  to  get  rid  of  him  but  could 
find  no  one  that  wanted  him.  Finally  I  ran  up  with  a 
man  who  had  two  old  steers  and  an  old  wagon  that  he 
would  trade  me  for  the  horse,  big  head  and  all,  but  he 
wanted  eighty  dollars  difference.  I  had  no  money  and 
he  said  he  didn't  need  it  then  and  would  wait  'til  I  could 
pay  it  so  I  traded  with  him  and  was  in  a  high  glee  over 
the  deal  .  I  decided  I  would  just  take  the  team  and  go 
to  hauling  and  would  make  money  fast.  I  heard  of  a 
man  that  had  a  clay  mine  and  wanted  teams  to  haul 
his  clay  to  the  copper  mines.  The  clay  was  to  be  car- 
ried about  fifteen  miles.  I  struck  out  with  my  team  in 
good  spirit  expecting  to  make  money  rapidly  and  pay 
off  my  debts  I  had  been  making.  When  I  got  there  my 
team  appeared  to  be  jaded  and  tired,  but  I  put  on  a  big 
load  of  clay  and  started  out  with  it,  I  got  stalled  at  the 
first  hill  and  broke  down  the  old  wagon,  my  steers  all 
had  the  hollow  horn  and  gave  out  on  me.  Finally  I 
got  back  home  with  my  old  steers  and  the  broken  wagon 
leaving  the  load  of  clay  behind.     I  soon  decided  that 

15 


the  wagon  and  team  were  no  good  and  a  failure  and  I 
was  determined  to  get  rid  of  them  the  first  chance.  I 
tried  levery  lOne  that  I  could  see  or  hear  of  but  could 
find  no  one  that  wanted  to  buy.  I  at  last  found  a  man 
that  had  an  old  mare  blind  in  one  eye  that  he  would 
trade  and  I  did  not  lose  much  time  in  closing  the  deal 
with  him.  I  traded  this  old  mare  for  some  oxen  as  it 
was  my  plan  to  get  a  team  and  go  in  to  the  hauling  busi- 
ness. I  heard  that  a  man  over  near  where  mother  had 
moved  from  in  Georgia  had  a  fine  pair  of  oxen  to  sell. 
I  was  well  acquainted  with  him  and  I  went  over  there, 
saw  and  bought  them.  He  told  me  he  would  take  fifty 
dollars  for  them.  He  said  that  he  did  not  need  the 
money  and  I  could  pay  him  when  I  wanted  to.  I  then 
had  two  good  teams.  I  hired  a  boy  named  Jim  Green 
one  that  had  gone  to  school  to  me  in  Georgia,  at  $8.00 
per  month  with  the  understanding  that  he  was  to  drive 
one  of  my  teams  every  day  regardless  of  the  weather. 
I  was  in  debt  and  was  not  going  to  lose  any  time.  I 
contracted  with  the  boy  to  haul  wood  to  the  furnace  at 
Duck  Town.  It  was  five  miles  from  the  wood  yard  to 
Duck  Town.  Jim  hauled  one  cord  on  his  four-ox 
wagon  and  I  hauled  three-fourths  cord,  two  loads  a  day 
each.  The  mian  we  hauled  for  was  a  very  wicked  man. 
His  name  was  Ben  Tolliver.  He  told  me  I  need  lose  no 
time,  his  work  was  regular,  but  any  time  I  could  make 
more  money  working  some  where  else  just  go  ahead 
and  when  the  work  gave  out,  to  come  back  to  old  Ben. 
We  kept  on  regularly  every  day  rain  or  shine,  cold  or 
hot,  snow  or  sleet,  never  lost  a  day.  They  paid  once 
a  month  and  I  commenced  each  month  to  pay  my  debts, 
which  were  enormous  for  one  of  my  condition.  Ben 
paid  one  dollar  per  cord  for  wood. 

About  this  time  a  number  of  Virginians  moved  in 
and  commenced  to  raise  tobacco.  The  large  profits 
they  were  making  induced  me  to  go  into  the  tobacco 
business  and  that  required  going  in  debt  still  more. 
I  had  to  clear  up  more  land  and  build  a  tobacco  barn. 

16 


This  extra  work  made  my  crop  late  but  the  prospect  of 
a  large  price  for  tobacco  stimulated  me.  My  crop  look- 
ed fine  and  many  thought  my  tobacco  crop  would  net 
me  ?500.00.  On  the  25th  of  September  a  big  frost  or 
rather  a  big  freeze,  killed  all  my  tobacco,  corn  and 
every  thing  I  had  growing.  My  corn  fell  off  the  cob 
in  the  field.  My  tobacco  crop  was  a  total  loss.  My 
tobacco  barn  was  just  finished  and  me  in  debt  for  it  all. 
I  had  not  a  thing  to  eat  nor  feed  my  stock.  Oh,  how 
badly  discouraged  I  was !  The  first  thing  I  did  was  to 
go  and  see  all  my  creditors,  tell  them  my  condition  and 
ask  them  to  tell  me  what  to  do.  They  all  told  me  to  go 
on  and  do  the  best  I  could,  they  did  not  need  the  money 
and  would  wait  on  me  until  I  could  be  able  to  pay  it. 
Some  of  the  merchants  told  me  if  I  needed  any  more 
help  to  call  on  them.  With  this  encouragement  I  went  to 
work  in  good  spirits.  My  Jim  boy  stuck  on  with  me,  on 
and  on.  I  got  acquainted  with  a  German  by  the  name  of 
J.  H.  Raught,  who  was  superintendent  of  the  Congdon 
Mines.  He  got  me  to  make  and  deliver  him  a  hundred 
thousand  two-foot  boards  which  I  delivered  promptly. 
I  made  some  good  money  while  on  this  job.  He  also 
gave  me  a  lot  of  other  work  to  do  from  time  to  time  and 
seemed  to  be  interested  in  me  from  the  start.  I  always 
thought  that  Uncle  Ben  must  have  recommended  me  to 
him  as  he  seemed  to  want  to  help  me  in  getting  jobs 
where  I  could  make  more  pay  than  by  hauling  wood. 
Capt.  Raught  wanted  me  to  burn  and  deliver  to  him  one 
hundred  thousand  bushels  of  charcoal,  which  I  agreed 
to  do.  That  was  a  new  work  to  me,  didn't  know  any- 
thing about  coal  pits.  Henry  Suits  was  an  experienced 
collier  and  said  he  would  burn  my  coal  at  a  dollar  per 
day.  I  hired  him  and  advertised  for  good  choppers. 
It  wasn't  long  until  I  had  forty  men  cutting  wood  at  40 
cents  per  cord,  had  a  twenty-five  cord  pit  up  and  burn- 
ing, and  I  commenced  delivering  the  coal  at  once.  I 
stayed  with  Suits,  my  collier,  day  and  night  and  helped 
him  put  it  up  and  draw  it  out  and  load  it  on  the  wagons. 

17 


Suits  was  afraid  to  stay  alone  at  night,  I  was  afraid  of 
nothing.  Just  before  wefinished  up  with  the  first  pit 
of  coal,  Suits  and  I  fell  out  and  I  run  him  off  out  of  the 
coal  yard.  Then  I  went  on  with  it  myself,  from  that 
time  on  I  stayed  in  the  coal  yard  day  and  night  until 
my  job  was  completed.  However,  Suits  came  back  and 
apologized,  we  made  up  and  I  hired  him  as  a  helper 
only  when  I  needed  him  but  not  as  a  collier.  I  made 
good  in  this  business.  Mr.  Rought  wanted  me  to  con- 
tinue and  I  work  ed  on  for  him  for  quite  a  while.  I 
then  commenced  paying  my  debts  pretty  fast.  I  had 
everything  to  buy  and  nothing  to  sell,  had  my  grocery 
and  feed  bills  to  pay  out  of  my  earnings  each  pay  day. 
What  I  had  left  went  to  my  creditors.  As  my  credit 
was  good  for  anything  I  needed,  money  or  anything 
else  I  always  had  plenty  of  hands  to  work  and  they  were 
all  workers.  When  a  drone  got  in  with  me  I  would 
run  him  off.  Notwithstanding  my  indebtedness  and 
bad  management,  I  could  always  get  money  to  pay  off 
my  hands  when  they  wanted  to  quit  or  I  wanted  them  to 
quit  without  waiting  for  pay  day  to  come  around. 

Everything  went  on  smoothly  and  I  enjoyed  life  to 
the  fullest  extent.  I  had  already  made  up  my  mind  to 
go  west  as  soon  as  I  could  pay  up  my  debts  and  get 
enough  ahead  to  enable  me  to  go.  Iwas  now  getting 
near  the  point  and  became  more  and  more  anxious  but 
no  one  would  believe  it.  All  that  I  knew  would  trust 
me  for  anything  I  wanted  to  pay  and  my  word  was  good 
for  everything  else,  still  my  friends  would  not  believe 
me  when  I  said  I  was  going  to  leave  the  country.  At 
this  time  I  had  paid  every  man  every  cent  that  I  owed 
except  Jim  Dickey  for  a  yoke  of  oxen.  He  lived  some 
ten  or  fifteen  miles  away  and  I  had  no  way  of  going 
only  to  walk.  I  sent  him  word  repeatedly  that  I  was 
going  to  leave  the  country  and  did  not  ever  expect  to 
come  back  and  if  he  ever  expected  to  get  paid  for  his 
cattle  he  had  better  come  or  send.  I  was  about  ready 
to  start.     Still  he  paid  no  attention  to  me.     I  waited  on 

18 


him  and  finally  I  had  to  walk  all  the  way  over  there  to 
pay  him.     I  told  him  that  all  I  owed  was  paid  but  him 
and  that  I  come  very  near  leaving  without  paying  him. 
He  replied  that  he  wouldn't  have  cared  for  he  knew  I 
would  have  sent  it  back  to  him.       I  had  rented  out  my 
land  to.  Jack  Fain  for  the  third  part  of  what  it  made. 
The  morning  came  in  which  we  were  to  start.     I 
had  prepared  a  good  tent  with  iron  spikes  put  on  the 
ends  of  the  posts  so  they  would  be  easy  to  put  down  in 
any  kind  of  ground.     Notwithstanding  all  this  no  one 
believed  I  was  going.     I  drove  my  wagon  up  in  front 
of  my  cabin  the  evening  before,  packed  up  all  the  things 
that  we  could  spare  for  the  night.       Early    the    next 
morning  we  commenced  to  load  with  not  a  soul  there  to 
help.     Pretty  soon  Nat  Rice  one  of  my  near  neighbors 
came  along  and  seemed  to  be  greatly  surprised.     He 
had  said  all  along  that  he  v/as  going  with  me  and  I  had 
told  him  to  be  ready  that  day  if  he   was     going.     He 
helped  meto  load  up  and  said  he  sure  was  going  with 
me  and  wanted  me  to  tell  him  where  I   was   going   to 
camp.     He  said  he  would  overtake  me  some  time  that 
night.     I  told  him  I  was  going  through  Duck  Town  and 
just  as  far  down  the  Ocoee  River  as  I  could  drive  that 
day.     I  told  him  I  did  not  want  to  hear  anymore  of  his 
lies  and  drove  out.     He  left  me  in  a  hurry  and  went 
back  home.     We  made  good  progress  on  the  road  and 
took  the  route  planned.     About  sunset  we  found  a  nice 
place  to  camp  near  a  fine  spring  of  clear  water  near 
the  banks  of  the  river,  here  we  pitched  our  tent  for  the 
first  time,  all  happy  and  in  fine  glee.     After  eating  a 
hearty  supper  we  went  to  bed,  sleeping  soundly.    About 
midnight  we  were  awakened  by  the  approach  of  Bice 
and  his  family.     He  had  a  pair  of  oxen  and  a  wagon 
without  a  cover  on  it,  a  load  of  children  of  most  all  sizes 
and  a  few  duds.     Wife  and  I  were  delighted  at  their 
arrival.     Mary  Jane,  their  oldest  daughter,  was  about 
grown.     Enoch,  the  oldest  boy,  was  nearly  grown  and 
a  good  ox  driver.     Enoch  drove  my  team,    John,    the 

19 


next  oldest  boy,  drove  Bice's,  Mary  Jane  rode  in  our 
wagon  to  help  my  wife  with  our  children.  Bice  and  I 
would  rabbit  and  squirrel  hunt  days,  some  days  it 
would  be  night  before  we  would  overtake  the  wagon. 

On  the  night  of  their  arrival  my  wife  and  I  got  right 
up  to  fix  them  for  the  journey.  Mahala,  my  wife, 
helped  them  cook  and  I  helped  to  make  a  bow  frame 
and  put  a  covering  over  his  wagon.  By  the  time  it  was 
good  day-light  we  were  on  our  way.  We  were  twenty- 
one  days  on  the  road.  Our  first  stop  was  in  Winston 
County,  near  where  Double  Springs  is  now  located. 
We  left  North  Carolina  about  25th  day  of  September, 
1858.  This  was  a  fine  trip.  We  all  kept  well  and  were 
as  happy  a  set  as  you  generally  soe.  The  roads  were 
in  an  awful  condition  in  most  places.  After  we  left 
Georgia  and  got  in  the  Lookout  Mountains  south  and 
west  of  Chattanooga  there  were  nearly  no  roads  at  all. 


20 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  country  in  many  places  was  uninhabited.  Oc- 
casionally we  would  come  to  a  cross  road  store  and  get 
some  needed  groceries.  When  we  struck  the  line  of 
Winston  County  our  rations  had  run  very  short.  The 
county  site  of  Winston  County  was  then  Houston  on 
the  east  side  of  Crooked  Creek.  We  kept  inquiring  of 
every  one  we  saw  for  the  distance  to  Houston.  The 
last  information  we  had  it  was  three  miles.  We  travel- 
ed on  and  on  for  several  miles  before  we  saw  anyone 
to  inquire  of,  then  we  were  told  that  we  had  already 
passed  through  Houston  and  that  there  was  no  store 
there  and  never  had  been  only  one  house  where  Judge 
Hoskins  lived  and  it  was  a  little  off  the  road.  We 
stopped  on  the  east  side  of  Sipsey  River  where  one 
McAlister  lived.  He  had  an  empty  house  which  he 
let  us  have  until  we  could  look  around  and  find  a  loca- 
tion. We  were  looking  for  government  lands  which 
we  could  get  under  the  Gradation  Act  at  twelve  and  a 
half  cents  per  acre.  There  was  a  great  deal  of  it  as 
very  little  had  been  taken  up  at  that  time  but  it  was  all 
poor  land,  all  about  the  same  quality.  Pretty  soon  I 
found  a  place  where  I  thought  I  could  make  a  living. 
I  sent  one  dollar  and  registered  on  it  at  Huntsville. 
That  held  it  for  me  a  while  subject  only  to  my  entry. 

This  was  near  the  home  of  old  man  Charles  Long, 
who  came  there  from  Cherokee  Co.,  North  Carolina. 
I  located  a  place  to  build  me  a  cabin,  but  there  was  no 
place  for  me  to  move  to  while  building  my  house.  Tom 
R.  Long,  a  son  of  Chas.  Long,  lived  in  about  one  mile  of 
my  location.  He  had  a  wife  but  no  children.  He  kind- 
ly invited  me  to  move  my  family  into  his  home,  and  to 
stay  there  until  I  could  build  me  a  house.  He  just  had 
a  nice  little  one  room  log  house,  with  one  fireplace  in 
it.  I  do  not  think  I  ever  appreciated  such  a  favor  any 
more  in  my  life.  My  wife,  two  children  and  I  found  a 
home  in  his  house.  We  got  along  just  as  well  as  it 
w^ould  be  possible  for  any  two  families  to  do.     In  fact, 

21 


we  were  close  friends  as  long  as  he  and  his  wife  lived. 
I  never  did  get  over  the  appreciation  of  such  a  favor. 

Mr.  Long  owned  a  pony  and  that  was  about  all  his 
possessions.  I  owned  two  pair  of  oxen  and  that  was 
my  estate.  We  both  got  out  of  meat  about  the  same 
time.  He  told  me  that  he  knew  a  man  by  the  name  of 
Alexander,  in  the  Poplar  Log  Cove  about  twenty-seven 
miles  from  there,  near  Moulton,  Ala.,  who  had  meat  to 
sell.  So  he  and  I  went,  he  on  his  pony  and  I  on  foot. 
We  each  bought  a  big  side  of  bacon  and  brought  it  back 
on  the  pony.  We  had  to  stay  over  one  night  at  old 
man  Baker's,  Henry  Baker's  father,  it  being  too  far  to 
get  back  the  same  day.  It  was  pretty  hard  on  a  new 
comer  to  be  v/ithout  meat,  cows  to  give  milk,  or  vege- 
tables. We  had  been  living  on  corn  bread  without 
meat,  and  ofter  trying  it  a  while  I  did  not  propose  to 
continue  in  that  kind  of  business. 

I  then  went  to  work  on  my  house,  in  good  faith.  It 
was  but  a  short  time  until  I  had  my  logs  cut  and  hauled, 
the  boards  made,  to  cover  the  buildings,  and  the  pun- 
cheons split  out  and  hewn  to  lay  the  floor.  At  that 
time  there  were  no  improvements  like  sawmills, 
etc.  A  few  men  who  lived  near  came  and  helped  me 
to  raise  my  house.  The  next  thing  I  did  was  to  build 
my  stick  and  dirt  chimney.  Then  I  put  in  my  sleepers 
and  laid  down  my  floor,  the  first  length,  next  to  the 
fireplace.  I  had  already  covered  the  house  before 
laying  the  floor.  We  moved  in  as  soon  as  the  floor 
was  laid  next  to  the  fireplace;  that  is,  the  first  one 
half.  By  bed  time  that  night  I  had  about  finished  lay- 
ing the  floor  on  the  back  end.  I  was  then  close  to  my 
work  and  could  work  at  nights,  making  a  Ga.  bedstead 
like  the  one  I  left  in  North  Carolina,  sealing  up  the 
cracks  and  making  every  thing  as  nice  and  camfort 
able  as  possible. 

My  wife  had  a  bedstead  her  mother  had  given  her 
that  we  brought  with  us,  but  mine  was  fastened  to  the 
walls  of  the  house  many  miles  aw^ay.     I  just  left  it  there 

22 


knowing  that  I  could  make  another  one.  I  could  then 
finish  up  the  house  at  nights  and  clear  the  land  and 
make  rails  in  the  day  time. 

Pretty  soon  after  we  had  got  fixed  up  mother's 
husband,  East  Mosely  and  another  man  came  from 
North  Carolina  to  look  at  the  country.  They  traveled 
on  horseback.  They  did  not  like  the  country,  so  I 
sold  them  my  interest  in  my  little  piece  of  land  I  had 
in  N.  C.  I  took  the  two  horses  they  were  riding,  and 
to  pay  me  one  hundred  and  twe.ity  five  dollars  the  next 
fall  and  the  same  amount  the  next  fall,  making  a  total 
of  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  I  took  up  my  note 
I  had  given  Mother,  which  I  think  was  four  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars.  I  was  to  get  the  rent  that  year. 
Then  I  set  in  and  built  me  two  stalls  and  made  boards 
to  cover  my  horses. 

About  this  time  John  Suits,  one  of  my  North  Caro- 
lina neighbors,  moved  in.  He  had  a  wife,  one  child, 
and  his  wife's  sister,  Sarah  Redmond.  I  let  him  move 
into  my  one-room  house  with  me.  So  that  made  quite 
a  family  in  one  sixteen  by  eighteen  foot  cabin,  but  we 
got  along  fine. 

One  morning  I  took  my  mattock  and  went  to  grub- 
bing up  sprouts,  before  breakfast.  When  I  would  try 
to  cut  the  root  the  sand  would  give  away  to  such  an 
extent  that  the  whole  length  of  the  root  would  come 
out.  I  then  took  my  mattock  handle  and  stuck  it 
down  where  I  was  digging,  and  I  could  push  it  down  the 
full  length,  in  to  the  ground.  I  went  to  different  places 
with  the  same  results.  I  just  threw  my  mattock  on  my 
shoulder  and  went  to  the  house.  I  told  Mr.  Suits  I  had 
done  my  last  work  on  that  place,  and  he  was  very  much 
surprised. 

Old  man  Stroud  Johnson  had  been  telling  us  about 
some  rich  lands  on  Buttahatchee,  in  Marion  Co.,  called 
'The  Cove".  This  was  less  than  a  day's  travel,  and  I 
wanted  to  see  it.  If  I  did  not  get  better  pleased  I  would 
reload  my  wagon  and  go  west  of  the  Mississippi  River. 

23 


If  my  money  gave  ont  I  would  work  for  more.  So  we 
went  to  see  Johnson  that  day.  He  said  he  could  not 
go  that  day,  but  would  go  the  next  day.  So  Suits 
stayed  and  I  went  early  the  next  morning.  I  rode  one 
of  my  ponies. 

We  struck  the  Biler  Road  near  what  was  called 
Littleville,  the  home  of  Ap  Little.  Then  to  old  Thorn 
Hill  where  Judge  Orrin  Davis  lived.  He  had  a  lot  of 
nice  cottages  furnished  for  the  accomodation  of  summer 
visitors,  for  it  was  a  health  resort,  also  for  the  accom- 
odation of  the  traveling  public.  The  many  horse  and 
hog  drovers,  also  negro  drovers,  found  lodging  and 
board  here.  He  had  a  postoffice  here  also,  the  only  one 
that  was  known  of  in  that  part  of  the  country.  That 
was  where  Haleyville  now  is.  I  had  an  introduction  to 
Judge  Davis.  He  was  a  large  slave  holder.  He  had  a 
negro  quarter  on  Lost  Creek  where  Carbon  Hill  now  is, 
also  had  land  cultivated  on  Buttahatchee  and  Bear 
Creek  by  slaves.  He  was  a  native  of  North  Carolina. 
He  showed  considerable  courtesy  and  gave  me  en- 
couragement. We  went  on  down  the  Biler  Road  to 
what  was  known  as  Boar  Tusk  Springs,  where  Crooked 
John  Cagle  lived.  After  we  left  there  William  Brad- 
ford who  had  bought  land  from  Judge  Davis,  and  lived 
in  the  Cove,  came  along  and  Judge  Davis  told  him  about 
us.  He  followed  and  overtook  us  and  went  on  with  us 
and  spent  the  night  and  the  next  day  with  us.  He  had 
over  bought  and  wanted  to  sell  some  of  his  land.  The 
next  morning  we  struck  the  Cove  at  the  ''Right  Roden 
Deadening".  The  land  v/as  very  rich  and  in  very  small 
bodies.  It  was  heavily  timbered  with  no  improvements 
and  no  roads.  We  proceeded  down  the  road  to  the 
land  that  Bradford  wanted  to  sell  us.  It  lay  in  much 
better  bodies  and  a  good  deal  of  it  had  been  in  cultiva- 
tion but  had  grown  up  in  cane,  elder,  muscadines  and 
grape  vines.  I  liked  the  land  fine  and  bought  it  that 
day.  I  let  him  have  one  of  my  ponies  on  it  and  owed 
him  for  the  balance,  which  was  to  be  in  payments.     He 

24 


turned  my  notes  over  to  Judge  Davis  for  his  payments, 
or  rather  to  meet  them.  Then  I  went  back  in  fine  glee 
to  move  right  on  to  my  new  purchase. 

This  was  about  February  1,  1859.  I  was  then  a 
little  over  twenty  one  years  old.  I  tried  to  get  my 
friend  Suits  to  remain  on  my  location.  I  told  him  I 
would  give  him  my  house,  stables  and  all  the  rails  that 
I  had  made,  as  I  was  done  with  these  parts  and  was  not 
expecting  any  reward  for  my  labors.  He  declined  the 
offer  and  siad  he  was  going  with  me,  where  I  went  he 
was  going  and  where  I  located  he  was  going  to  locate. 
He  was  a  good  worker,  but  would  give  out  before  night 
some  days  when  we  were  doing  hard  work.  He  was 
much  older  than  I  and  his  whiskers  and  beard  were  too 
big  and  long  to  keep  up  all  of  the  time.  I  had  no  beard 
then  as  I  had  not  come  to  myself  fully,  yet.  I  was 
strong  and  healthy  and  was  an  expert  at  running  races, 
jumping  fences,  etc. 

I  had  learned  that  a  man  by  the  name  of  Bill  Dodd 
owned  land  adjoining  the  land  I  had  bought  and  that 
he  had  a  little  empty  .cabin  on  it,  near  the  line  of  my 
land.  So  we  loaded  up  our  goods  on  the  ox  wagon  and 
Suits  drove  out  with  our  families.  I  mounted  my  re- 
maining horse  and  went  on  to  see  the  man  Dodd,  who 
owned  the  little  house  near  where  I  was  moving  to. 
He  said  I  could  get  it,  but  only  for  a  short  time.  It  was 
about  twelve  by  fourteen  feet.  So  one  can  imagin  the 
situation,  with  my  wife,  two  children,  and  me;  Suits, 
his  wife,  one  child,  and  his  wife's  sister,  Sarah  Red- 
mond, who  was  about  grown.  There  were  eight  of  us 
in  all. 

We  got  there  on  Saturday  night  and  spent  Sunday 
in  locating  a  suitable  place  for  building  our  house.  We 
also  entertained  many  visitors  who  had  heard  of  us  in 
advance  and  came  from  several  miles  around  to  see 
what  we  looked  like,  we  supposed.  They  also  wanted 
to  congratulate  us  on  our  arrival  and  offer  any  assist- 
ance we  might  need  in  building  our     home.     Among 

25 


them  was  Stuttering  Charlie  Cagle.  We  highly  appre- 
ciated this,  but  told  them  we  would  only  ask  for  help 
to  handle  the  logs  we  would  use  in  the  erection  of  the 
building.  We  selected  our  building  place  at  the  foot 
of  a  big  hill  on  the  north  side  of  two  large  mulberry 
trees,  that  looked  as  if  they  were  grown  there  on  pur- 
pose for  a  shade  for  us.  We  agreed  that  we  would 
build  our  house  thirty-two  feet  by  sixteen  feet  and 
make  a  partition  of  logs  in  the  center  and  let  each 
family  occupy  his  own  side.  This  was  done  so  that  in 
case  we  should  have  a  row  we  vv^ould  have  time  to  re- 
flect before  getting  into  an  engagement.  This  worked 
out  happily. 

Mrs.  Suits  was  a  large,  white-eyed  woman,  good 
natured  and  kind  but  very  high  tempered.  She  was 
very  quarrelsome  with  her  husband,  who  being  a  good 
natured  man,  took  it  all.  I  took  up  for  him,  then  she 
and  I  quarreled  daily.  She  did  not  care  what  she  said 
and  would  laugh  at  my  cutting  words.  Miss  Redmond 
was  a  fine  girl  and  sided  with  me. 

Early  Monday  morning  Suits  set  out,  with  the  team 
after  the  remainedr  of  our  goods.  I  with  an  ax  started 
cutting  logs.  I  found  a  lot  of  long,  slim  poplars  grow- 
ing on  the  banks  of  the  creek.  When  Suits  got  back 
with  the  team  I  had  the  logs  already  cut,  the  roads  to 
them  cleaned  out,  and  had  found  and  cut  down  board 
trees  sufficient  to  cover  the  building  and  also  a  stable 
for  the  horse.  We  lost  no  time  in  hauling  the  logs  and 
making  and  hauling  the  boards. 

We  were  soon  ready  to  raise  the  building.  Several 
willing  hands  were  on  hand  to  help  us  lift  the  logs,  put 
them  in  place,  and  notch  them  down.  We  soon  had 
our  two  room  house  up  and  covered  and  the  roof  on 
with  weight  polls  on  the  top  to  hold  the  boards  in  place. 
We  split  out  and  hewed  three  pretty  poplars  and  made 
a  nice  steady  floor.  We  built  a  stick  and  dirt  chimney 
in  each  end  and  were  ready  to  move  in.  This  we  im- 
mediately did. 

26 


We  had  nothing  to  do  now  but  go  to  work  clearing 
land  and  preparing  for  a  crop.  About  this  time  I  sold 
my  last  pair  of  oxen  to  a  man  that  agreed  to  clear  five 
acres  of  land  and  to  pay  the  balance  in  corn.  I  had  al- 
ready bought  fifteen  bushels  of  corn  from  Burl  Howell, 
a  well-to-do  farmer  some  ten  miles  west  of  here.  One  of 
my  neighbors,  Reuben  Farrow,  recommended  to  him 
and  signed  a  note  v/ith  me  as  a  security  for  the  corn.  I 
then  had,  with  what  corn  the  man  owed  me,  enough 
corn  to  do  me.  I  was  quite  happy  in  being  so  well  fixed. 
About  three  miles  down  the  creek  a  man  had  more 
open  land  than  he  could  tend,  so  I  told  Suits  I  thought 
we  had  better  rent  some  land  from  him.  This 
we  did.  I  went  to  clearing  land,  as  soon  as  we 
got  moved,  in  an  old  field  which  ran  up  to 
the  house.  It  had  all  grown  up  in  briars  and 
vines,  but  there  was  no  timber  on  it  to  make  a  shade, 
so  I  got  along  fast  with  it.  My  good  wife  would  go  out 
with  me  after  supper  often,  when  the  weather  was 
good  and  the  children  were  asleep,  and  make  little  fires 
out  of  sticks  and  drift  to  make  a  light  for  me  to  see  to 
cut  briars  and  sprouts  until  bed  time.  The  man, 
Dodd,  that  had  a  little  house  we  moved  into  first,  had 
about  three  acres  of  cleared  land  close  to  the  little 
house;  and  some  that  was  not  cleared.  The  line  be- 
tween us  was  not  a  suitable  place  for  a  cross  fence,  but 
a  little  above  there,  there  was  a  narrow  place  in  the 
bottom  where  we  could  make  a  line  fence.  He  offered 
to  sell  me  the  strip  of  land,  including  the  little  field 
and  the  little  cabin,  for  eighty  dollars;  and  would  wait 
until  fall  for  the  money.  So  I  just  traded  with  him. 
That  little  addition  to  the  land  I  was  clearing  made  me 
a  right  nice  little  crop,  but  I  kept  on  clearing  and  ad- 
ding to  my  crop  until  it  was  too  late  for  the  crop  to 
mature. 

I  forgot  to  mention  a  circumstance  that  solved  a 
problem  in  feeding  my  family.  On  my  trip  in  advance 
of  the  wagon  that  moved  us  from  Winston  Co.  to  Marion 

27 


Co.  and  soon  after  getting  to  the  Biler  Road  I  met  up 
with  an  old  settler  by  the  name  of  Buck  West  and  we 
rode  together  for  several  miles.  He  lived  where  the 
Natural  Bridge  village  now  is.  He  gave  me  a  lot  of  in- 
formation in  regard  to  the  country.  I  told  him  I  was 
in  need  of  a  cow  and  he  said  he  had  a  nice  young  cow 
he  would  sell  for  twelve  dollars.  I  had  only  five  dol- 
lars to  pay  on  a  cow,  but  he  told  me  just  to  come  and 
and  get  the  cow  and  he  would  wait  for  the  balance  un- 
til I  was  able  to  pay  it.  So  that  fixed  me  in  the  way  of 
milk.  As  soon  as  we  got  into  our  house  I  went  and  got 
the  cow.  I  paid  him  the  five  dollars,  and  that  left  me 
indebted  to  him  seven  dollars.  She  was  a  first  rate 
cow  but  I  had  a  great  deal  of  trouble  with  her.  She 
sucked  herself,  and  we  needed  the  milk  so  bad  that  I 
tried  various  plans  and  ways  to  prevent  this  and  was 
successful  in  the  end. 

When  I  got  the  land  Mr.  Suits  and  I  had  rented, 
fixed  up  and  planted  I  told  him  if  he  v/ould  help  me  as 
long  as  I  was  planting  the  rented  crop  I  would  let  him 
have  it  and  would  keep  on  adding  to  my  clearing  and 
make  out  with  what  I  could  get  in.  He  accepted  it 
and  w^ent  on  and  made  a  crop  to  himself.  After  I  fin- 
ished planting  my  crop  I  had  some  leisure  days  as  I  did 
not  have  enough  land  to  keep  the  busy  all  the  time. 
Mr.  Farrow,  three  miles  away  told  me  he  would  give 
seventy  cents  a  day  if  I  would  bring  my  horse  and  plow 
for  him.  I  was  glad  to  this  as  we  needed  the  money. 
We  had  meat  only  when  I  would  kill  a  deer  or  turkey 
which  was  right  often.  That  summer  w^as  the  most 
leisure  period  I  had  ever  had.  My  crop  was  small  in 
comparison  to  what  I  would  have  had  if  I  had  had  more 
land  cleared.  We  made  a  bountiful  crop,  had  enough 
made  to  last  us  two  years  or  more. 


28 


CHAPTER  V 

I  could  not  get  any  work  to  do  save  the  few  days 
that  I  plowed  for  Mr.  Farrow  through  the  summer. 
There  was  lots  of  game  in  the  woods  and  wild  bees 
too.  We  found  a  number  of  bee  trees  and  lots  of  wild 
honey  to  eat  besides  supplying  myself  with  a  good  sup- 
ply of  bees  for  future  use.  We  also  had  all  the  ven- 
sion  we  needed  and  some  to  give  away.  I  bought  some 
hogs  and  they  increased  and  grew.  The  earth  was 
covered  in  many  places  with  acorns  and  beech  nuts, 
so  the  hogs  had  nothing  to  do  but  grow  and  thrive. 

When  I  bought  the  land  referred  to  I  sold  my  horse 
in  the  land  deal  but  reserved  the  use  of  him  to  make) 
my  crop  with.  As  soon  as  my  crop  was  finished  I  turn- 
ed him  over  to  Judge  Davis  as  I  had  agreed  to  do.  I 
had  kept  him  sleek  and  fat  and  the  Judge  was  highly 
pleased  with  him. 

The  hardest  job  I  had  was  to  build  a  fence  around 
my  crop.  The  rail  trees  had  been  cut  and  used  around 
near  the  land  I  had  cleared  and  it  was  about  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  to  where  there  was  any  good  rail  timber.  I 
was  an  expert  in  splitting  rails  and  liked  the  business. 
I  had  sold  off  my  oxen  and  had  to  carry  the  rails  to  my 
shoulder  to  build  my  fence.  I  am  sure  that  was  a  hard 
job,  if  not  the  hardest,  I  ever  had;  but  I  succeeded  and 
made  a  good  fence  that  protected  my  crop. 

Along  about  then  I  got  acquainted  with  a  man  by 
the  name  of  Green  Haley.  He  was  a  slave  holder,  a 
farmer,  horse  trader,  and  what  was  then  called  a  Camp 
bellite  Preacher.  He  was  one  of  the  most  accomodat- 
ing men  I  ever  saw.  I  told  him  of  my  trouble,  about 
giving  up  my  last  horse  and  that  it  would  take  all  the 
money  I  had  owing  to  me  to  pay  off  my  indebtedness 
and  I  did  not  kno  wwhat  I  would  do  to  get  something 
to  plow  to  make  a  crop  with.  He  told  me  not  to  suffer 
any  uneasiness  in  regard  to  that  for  he  would  furnish 
me  with  any  kind  of  a  horse  I  wanted  and  that  I  could 
just  set  my  own  time  to  pay  for  it.     That  sure  made  me 

29 


feel  good.  I  had  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  due 
me  on  my  North  Carolina  land,  one  half  to  be  paid  that 
fall  and  the  other  half  the  next  fall,  and  the  rents  off 
the  place  that  I  had  reserved.  Mr.  Haley  tried,  almost 
every  time  I  saw  him,  to  sell  me  a  horse.  I  told  him 
how  much  I  appreciated  his  kindness  to  me  and  that 
I  would  sure  call  on  him  when  I  got  ready  to  plow,  as 
a  horse  would  at  that  time  be  an  unnecessary  expense 
to  me  as  I  could  foot  it  around  where  I  had  to  go.  I 
knew  that  it  was  necessary  for  a  boy  in  my  condition  to 
save  all  he  counld  until  I  got  in  better  shape  than  I  was 
in  at  that  time.  I  admired  Mr.  Haley  as  much  as  any 
man  I  ever  met,  except  his  Campbellism,  which  T 
could  not  endure.  We  had  never  talked  on  the  subject 
of  Christianity  but  I  had  heard  enough  about  that  sort 
to  settle  the  matter  once  for  all.  My  father  and  his  peo- 
ple were  Methodists,  while  my  mother  and  her  people 
were  Baptists.  So  I  held  with  the  Methodists  after  my 
father  died  but  my  mother  went  back  to  the  Baptists. 
We  went  to  all  of  the  Camp  Meetings  of  each  one  every 
year,  and  attended  meeting  regularly.  My  mother  en- 
couraged me  in  reading  the  Bible  and  I  had  read  it 
through  by  the  time  I  was  ten  j^ears  old.  Nearly  all  of 
my  neighbors  were  Campbellites  and  I  had  many  dis- 
cussions with  them  on  the  Bible.  Quite  often  I  would,  I 
thought,  get  the  best  of  the  argument.  As  soon,  how- 
ever, as  they  would  meet  Mr.  Haley  they  would  meet 
my  argument  and  show  my  interpetation  to  favor  them 
and  confound  my  position. 

The  mill  I  went  to  weekly  was  kept  by  a  Methodist 
Circuit  Rider,  who  preached  for  the  Ireland  congrega- 
tion. They  were  not  able  to  support  him  and  got  him 
the  position  as  miller,  to  assist  them  in  supporting  him. 
I  told  him  of  my  discussions  with  the  Campbellites  and 
desired  him  to  come  over  and  help  me  out.  He  said  if 
I  could  get  a  place  for  him  to  preach  he  would  come. 
So  I  got  him  to  make  an  appointment  at  my  house.  I 
went  to  work  and  split  out  some  puncheons  and  made 

30 


some  respectable  looking  benches  and  placed  them 
under  the  Mulberry  trees  in  front  of  my  door.  I  in- 
vited all  my  neighbors,  and  all  that  I  could  see,  to  come. 
The  country  was  sparsely  settled,  and  I  do  not  suppose 
there  had  ever  been  any  preaching  done  in  that  settle- 
ment before.  When  the  appointed  time  came  we  had 
quite  a  crowd  for  a  place  like  that.  Some  that  were 
there  came  ten  miles.  The  Campbellites  were  there 
also.  We  fixed  dinner  for  all  that  would  stay.  I 
wanted  the  preacher  to  skin  the  Campbellites,  just  rip 
them  up  the  back,  he  did  not,  but  gave  us  all  some  good 
practical  advice.  After  dinner  I  told  the  preacher 
I  wanted  him  to  help  me  to  put  down  such  doctrine  as 
they  preached,  that  I  had  some  children  that  would 
soon  be  old  enough  to  need  teaching  the  religion 
of  the  Bible,  the  old  reliable  religion  of  our  fathers  and 
mothers,  and  I  did  not  want  them  to  hear  any  such  stuff 
as  they  would  hear  at  what  is  now  called  'The  White 
House".  He  told  me  the  best  thing  I  could  do  was  to 
not  go  to  their  meetings  and  not  to  associate  with  them 
any  more  than  I  could  help,  as  it  was  a  dangerous  doc- 
trine they  advocated  and  he  did  not  feel  competent  to 
discuss  religious  subjects  with  them.  I  told  him  if  the 
devil  was  the  strongest  I  wanted  to  be  on  his  side.  I 
had  good  neighbors  that  helped  me  roll  logs  and  were 
good  and  kind  to  me  and  I  could  not  afford  not  to  asso- 
ciate with  them,  but  liked  them  and  was  their  friend 
and  they  had  as  much  right  to  their  way  of  thinking  as 
I  did  or  any  one  else.  So  that  ended  the  meeting  at 
our  house.  My  wife  was  a  Baptist  but  I  had  never  been 
so  fortunate  as  to  get  religion  nor  to  join  any  thing, 
although  I  had  tried  often. 

After  I  had  finished  working  my  crop  I  went  to 
clearing  more  land,  making  preparations  for  a  large 
crop  the  next  year.  Along  early  in  the  fall  my  time 
was  getting  close  to  hand  when  I  was  to  be  in  North 
Carolina,  to  get  the  rent  of  my  crop  and  collect  some 
money  that  was  due  me,  and  I  had  no  money  to  bear  my 

31 


expenses  with.  I  went  to  Judge  Davis  and  explained 
my  situation  to  him.  The  man  that  had  rented  my  land 
had  notified  me  the  time  to  be  there  to  take  charge  of 
my  rent  as  he  would  have  it  gathered  by  that  time.  I 
sold  Judge  Davis  fifty  bushels  of  corn  at  sixty  cents  a 
bushel.  I  was  to  have  it  gathered  by  a  set  time  and 
was  aiso  to  have  the  road  worked  out.  I  went  back  in 
fine  spirits  at  the  thought  of  getting  the  money  and 
and  making  the  trip  on  time.  I  worked  out  the  road, 
had  the  corn  gathered  and  ready  on  the  day  he  was  to 
send  for  it.  I  waited  on  until  noon  and  his  team  did 
not  show  up.  I  went  up  there  on  foot,  seven  miles,  to 
see  what  was  the  matter,  thinking  that  I  might  possibly 
meet  them  on  the  way,  but  no  such  luck.  I  asked  the 
Judge  why  it  was  that  he  had  not  sent  for  the  corn  that 
day  as  he  had  promised  to  do  and  then  explained  the 
situation  fully  as  I  had  done  when  he  bought  the  corn. 
He  replied  that  his  wagons  were  all  broken  and  he  was 
not  in  any  shape  to  get  the  corn  now.  I  told  him  I 
had  worked  on  all  the  road  and  my  corn  was  lying  on 
the  ground ;  my  time  was  up  to  start  on  my  trip  and  no 
money  to  bear  my  expenses.  He  told  me  he  would  try 
to  get  it  in  a  week  or  so  and  talked  some-what  about  it. 
It  made  me  so  mad  that  I  made  an  effort  to  take  him 
by  the  throat,  but  he  got  out  of  my  way  and  gave  me 
time  to  reflect.  He  was  quite  an  old  man  and  I  told 
him  if  he  was  a  young  m.an  I  would  knock  him  down 
and  give  him  a  good  stamping,  and  that  his  age  was  all 
that  saved  him.  I  told  what  I  thought  of  him  in  gene- 
ral. He  did  not  say  much  back  to  me,  only  that  he 
did  not  want  any  thing  to  do  with  me  any  more.  I 
I  told  him  that  suited  me  exactly,  that  when  a  man 
proved  to  me  that  he  v/as  a  liar  and  a  rascal ;  that  T 
was  only  too  glad  to  quit  him,  that  I  owed  him  and  was 
going  to  pay  him  and  then  it  would  be  all  over  with 
us. 

Well,  I  started  back  home  mad  and  discouraged. 
Old  man  Alec  Underwood  lived  on  the  road  that  I  pass- 

32 


ed  on  my  way  home.  I  told  him  the  treatment  I  had 
got  from  Judge  Davis  and  he  bemeaned  him  to  the 
lowest  degree  for  the  way  he  had  treated  me  and  said, 
"Well,  John,  I  will  pay  you  fifty  cents  a  bushel  for 
your  corn,  and  will  come  and  get  it  as  soon  as  you  come 
back,  and  I  will  give  you  the  money  now  to  enable  you 
to  go  right  on  and  meet  your  matters  in  North  Carolina 
on  time."  One  can  hardly  imagine  the  good  feelings  I 
had  for  the  old  man  for  the  great  accommodation  he 
had  done  for  me  right  In  time  of  my  great  need.  I  went 
back  with  a  light  heart,  cared  for  the  corn  I  had  gath- 
ered that  day  and  was  ready  to  start  on  my  trip  next 
morning. 

Hillsborough,  in  Lawrence  County  was  about  the 
nearest  point  to  the  railroad,  and  I  started  out  by  day- 
light, on  foot,  with  a  little  satchel  of  food  to  eat,  on  my 
way  to  Hillsborough,  nearly  fifty  miles  away.  I 
walked  on  at  a  brisk  gate  until  late  in  the  evening 
when  I  met  a  man  who  told  me  I  could  not  catch  a  train 
until  some  time  in  the  night.  I  kept  on  thinking  I 
would  try  and  get  there  in  time  to  catch  the  first  train, 
which  I  did  and  went  to  Chattanooga.  There  I  had  to 
change  for  Cleveland,  Tenn.,  arriving  in  that  place  on 
the  afternoon  of  the  next  day.  I  had  to  walk  from 
there  on,  which  was  about  fifty  miles.  As  soon  as  I 
got  off  the  train  I  set  off  for  Duck  Town.  My  feet 
were  so  sore  I  could  scarcely  walk,  they  hurt  me  so  bad, 
but  when  I  got  warmed  up  they  got  much  better.  It 
was  about  seven  miles  to  Ochoee  River,  but  when  I  got 
there  I  could  find  no  way  nor  no  one  to  set  me  over  the 
river.  The  man  who  lived  near  the  river  told  me  there 
was  an  old  crippled  horse  there  that  might  take  me 
over,  he  did  not  know  but  I  might  try  him.  I  looked  at 
the  horse  and  concluded  I  had  rather  wade  than  get 
wet  all  over.  The  river  was  wide  but  shallow,  the  man 
told  me  he  did  not  think  it  was  over  knee  deep.  So  I 
pulled  off  my  shoes  and  socks  and  to  my  surprise  the 
skin  came  off  my  feet  in  places  and  stuck  to  my  socks. 

33 


I  then  pulled  off  my  pants,  took  my  shoes,  socks,  and 
pants  under  my  arm  and  started  in  to  wade  across  the 
river.  The  water  was  terribly  cold  and  when  I  got 
across  I  found  to  my  surprise  that  the  cold  water  had 
drawn  the  soreness  out  of  my  feet.  My  legs  were  so 
cold  that  when  I  squeezed  them  they  had  no  feeling  in 
them.  I  put  on  my  pants  and  shoes  and  went  on  like 
a  new  man,  the  soreness  was  all  gone  from  my  feet.  I 
went  on  to  the  mouth  of  Greasy  Creek,  where  there 
was  an  inn,  the  only  stopping  place  to  Duck  Town  and 
stayed  there  that  night.  I  slept  very  sound  that  night 
and  next  morning  I  arose  feeling  good  and  well  rested. 
It  was  about  twenty  miles  to  the  next  house  as  the  river 
along  there  ran  through  a  ravine  and  the  road  had  been 
blasted  out  of  the  rocks  and  there  was  no  place  suitable 
for  a  house  or  anything  else.  I  kept  trudging  along  to 
get  to  my  dear  mother's,  that  blessed  sweet  mother  with 
whom  I  had  been  in  close  touch  all  my  days  and  as  long 
as  she  lived  on  this  earth  except  the  dark  days  of  the 
rebellion  of  1861.  I  got  there  and  there  was  much  re- 
joicing that  night  and  not  much  sleeping  done,  not 
withstanding  my  much  needed  sleep. 

I  only  remained  long  enough  to  sell  my  rents  and 
collect  my  dues.  There  was  a  hundred  and  fifty  five 
dollars  due  me  that  I  had  agreed  to  wait  for  another 
year,  but  the  party  told  me  that  if  I  would  buy  a  mare 
from  him  he  would  pay  me  then.  He  had  a  beautiful 
little  mare,  fine  quality,  and  a  fine  saddler  that  he 
gave  me  for  the  debt.  This  I  readily  accepted,  and 
caused  me  to  make  the  trip  back  home  horseback. 
The  mare  was  tender  footed  and  I  took  her  to  a  shop 
and  had  her  shod  all  around.  The  next  day  I  started 
on  my  trip  home,  but  my  mare's  feet  were  so  sore  that 
she  could  not  travel  fast.  I  did  not  go  near  so  far  as 
I  expected  and  next  morning  she  was  so  lame  that  I 
would  not  attempt  to  ride  her,  but  drove  her  before  me 
and  I  only  got  twenty  seven  miles  that  day.  I  tried  to 
trade  her  but  no  one  would  trade  with  me,  she  had  been 

34 


foundered,  which  was  the  cause  of  her  sore  feet.  I 
did  not  know  it  when  I  traded  for  her. 

I  got  to  my  wife's  brother,  Jack  Ballue's,  that  night. 
He  lived  in  Ringgold,  Ga.  His  brother  Arch  was  there 
too.  He  had  a  young  horse,  a  strong  rough  one,  but 
a  fair  saddler.  He  offered  to  trade  with  me  for  ten 
dollars  difference,  so  I  traded  with  him  and  left  out 
early  next  morning.  I  made  forty  miles  that  day,  and 
the  next  day  I  struck  the  mountains  where  very  few 
inhabitants  lived. 

I  had  a  hard  time  finding  a  place  to  spend  the  night 
but  happened  up  on  a  well-to-do  farmer  who  said  they 
had  a  corn  shucking  that  day  and  that  the  young  people 
were  expecting  to  have  a  fine  time  that  night  at  his 
home,  but  if  I  could  put  up  with  the  company  I  could 
stay.  There  were  a  lot  of  boys  and  girls  gathered 
there  planning  to  have  a  good  time,  but  the  man  who 
was  to  make  the  music  had  not  shown  up.  After  sup- 
per was  over  I  saw  a  nice  violin  lying  on  a  bed  and  I^ 
picked  it  up  and  began  tuning  it,  then  drew  the  bow 
over  it  a  time  or  two  which  attracted  the  attention  of  all 
of  them,  and  they  insisted  that  I  play  a  few  pieces  for 
them,  which  I  did.  I  commenced  on  "Billy  in  the  Low 
Ground",  a  piece  that  I  admired  very  much.  I  had 
hardly  commenced  when  the  floor  was  covered  with 
them,  dancing  for  dear  life.  I  continued  until  about 
time  I  wanted  to  retire,  but  they  wished  so  much  to 
dance  longer  that  I  agreed  to  play  for  them  a  little 
longer.  I  told  them  that  I  was  very  tired  and  wanted 
to  resume  my  journey  early  the  next  day  so  as  to  make 
forty  miles  that  day,  and  that  they  must  not  insist  any 
more.  They  commenced  to  dance  in  good  earnest  and 
and  made  so  much  racket  that  the  sound  of  the  music 
could  only  occasionally  be  heard,  and  all  I  had  to  do  at 
those  times  was  just  to  keep  the  bow  moving  slowly 
over  the  strings.  After  playing  a  while  longer  I  just 
quit,  over  their  protest,  and  went  to  bed. 

I  got  a  pretty  early  start  the  next  morning  and  the 

35 


land  lord  told  me  that  if  I  could  get  to  a  man's  house 
bj"  the  name  of  Scot  where  I  could  get  enter- 
tainment. This  was  where  the  town  of  Albertville 
now  is.  He  said  if  I  missed  that  the  chances  would  be 
bad  to  get  a  place  to  stay.  I  had  to  ride  hard  that  day 
to  get  to  Scot's  and  it  was  getting  dark  when  I  got  there, 
as  the  roads  were  so  bad  that  it  was  difficult  to  make 
much  headway.  Mr.  Scot  v/as  away,  had  gone  to 
Guntersville,  and  would  not  be  back  that  night  and  his 
wife  did  not  take  any  one  in  when  he  was  away.  I 
asked  her  the  distance  to  the  next  house  and  she  said 
it  was  three  miles  but  she  was  sorry  to  tell  me  that  they 
were  not  prepared  to  entertain  me.  My  horse  was  very 
tired  and  so  was  I  so  I  insisted  that  she  take  me  in  but 
she  woulld  not  consent.  She  said  there  was  no  one 
there  with  her  except  a  little  boy  and  she  could  not 
take  in  a  stranger.  I  reasoned  with  and  told  her  that 
all  good  people  were  not  dead,  that  I  had  a  family  at 
home,  and  that  if  any  one  were  to  undertake  to  disturb 
her  during  the  night  she  might  be  glad  to  have  me 
there.  All  my  entreaties  seemed  in  vain.  I  then  asked 
her  if  I  might  have  feed  for  my  horse,  and  she  replied 
in  the  affirmative.  I  dismounted  and  told  her  I  would 
sleep  under  a  tree  in  the  yard,  if  I  could  get  my  horse 
fed  I  could  make  out  all  right.  She  said,  "Well,  if  that 
is  what  you  are  going  to  do  you  can  come  in  the  house 
and  stay  for  I  cannot  put  up  with  that  way  of  doing." 
The  little  boy  got  corn  and  fodder  for  my  horse  and  I 
fed  him  seventy  five  ears  of  the  smallest  corn  I  ever 
saw  and  a  bundle  of  the  shortest  fodder  also.  My 
horse  did  not  leave  even  a  cob  he  had  cleaned  it  all  up. 
I  got  a  fine  bed  to  sleep  on,  and  also  fine  supper  and 
breakfast.  I  got  a  good  early  start  next  morning  and 
the  lady  told  me  I  had  better  go  down  the  mountain 
through  the  Cotaco  velley  and  by  Danville  and  Moulton 
as  the  chances  would  be  bad  in  getting  accomodations 
on  the  mountain  route. 

I  did  as  she  told  me  and  did  not  have  any  further 

36 


trouble.  I  stayed  the  last  night  at  Moulton  and  got 
home  next  day.  I  found  all  well  and  happy.  I  got 
back  with  enough  money  to  pay  off  all  of  my  debts:' 
this  I  did  the  first  thing.  I  let  Mr.  Underwood  have 
the  corn  I  owed  him  and  started  gathering  my  crop, 
which  v/as  fine.  I  made  about  five  hundred  bushels 
of  corn.  I  never  had  made  such  a  crop  before,  in  fact 
I  had  lots  of  corn  to  sell.  I  had  bought  some  hogs  and 
and  had  plenty  of  them  to  make  our  meat  and  plenty 
of  stock  hogs  for  the  next  year.  I  had  paid  all  the 
debts  I  owed  except  som^e  on  my  land  that  was  not 
driving  and  I  never  was  happier,  nor  in  better  spirits. 
Every  thing  looked  good  to  me,  a  fine  range  for  stock, 
cattle  could  live  through  the  winter  without  food;  and 
all  we  had  to  do  with  hogs  was  to  feed  and  watch  them 
to  keep  them  from  going  wild  or  being  stolen.  They 
only  needed  to  be  fed  enough  corn  to  keep  them  gentle. 
I  cleaned  up  a  whole  lot  of  land  that  year,  as  I  was  then 
able  to  hire  some  work  done.  I  had  plenty  of  corn, 
and  fodder  as  well  as  meat  that  I  could  sell  and  pay 
for  labor.  I  had  lots  of  friends  and  could  get  all  the 
labor  I  could  pay  for,  and  it  looked  like  every  thing; 
was  going  my  way.  My  wife  was  one  of  the  most  in- 
dustrious women  I  ever  saw.  I  would  not  let  her  work 
in  the  field  but  she  spun,  wove,  sewed  and  knitted  and 
kept  us  all  in  clothes,  in  fact  she  was  always  doing 
something.  The  next  year  we  made  a  fine  crop,  and 
our  stock  of  hogs  and  cattle  had  increased.  We  got 
a  good  price  for  everything  we  had  to  sell  and  paid  all 
we  owed  on  the  land,  and  had  some  money  left. 


37 


CHAPTER  VI 

At  this  time  the  Civil  War  broke  out  and  our  happy 
days  began  to  cease.  Great  clouds  of  war  loomed  up 
and  trouble  commenced  in  earnest.  Men  and  boys  had 
to  leave  their  home  and  loved  ones  and  go  off  to  fight 
the  battles  of  Secession.  The  first  thing  that  was  done 
was  to  hold  an  election  in  each  county  and  beat  to  elect 
delegates  to  go  to  Montgomery  and  vote  on  the  proposi- 
tion, ''Union  or  Secession."  We  sent  Lang  C.  Allen, 
G.  M.  Haley  and  Winston  Steadham  from  Marion  Co., 
and  instructed  them  to  vote  for  the  Union  first  and  last 
and  all  the  time.  About  all  the  people  in  this  part 
were  for  the  Union.  Even  Judge  Davis  and  Alex 
Underwood  my  advisers  told  me,  ''Now,  John,  be  sure 
and  go  to  the  election  and  vote  for  the  Union  for  if  we 
out  we  are  gone."  When  our  delegates  got  to  Mont- 
gomery nearly  the  whole  state  was  solid  for  the  Secess- 
ion, only  a  few  of  the  mountain  counties  were  for  the 
Union.  Our  delegates  wrote  back  to  us  and  told  us 
about  the  condition  of  things.  It  was,  they  said,  a 
dangerous  thing  to  say  any  thing  in  favor  of  the  Union, 
much  less  to  vote  that  way.  Some  of  the  delegates  just 
went  on  and  voted  for  Secession  while  the  others  slipped 
off  and  did  not  vote  at  all.  However,  Chris  Sleets,  the 
delegate  from  Winston  Co.,  stayed  with  them  and  con- 
tended for  the  Union.  They  put  him  in  jail  but  it  did 
no  good  for  he  fought  them  all  the  time  and  his  consti- 
tuents stood  behind  his,  hence  the  name  of  "The  Free 
State  of  Winston",  this  being  the  only  county  that  did 
not  secede.  Soon  the  bugles  began  to  blow,  meetings 
were  advocated  and  secessionists  on  the  stand  plead 
with  the  people  to  voulenteer  and  go  out  and  fight  for 
their  country.  Making  all  sorts  of  promises  they  in- 
duced many  to  go.  My  good  friends  Judge  Davis  and 
Underwood  had  changed,  they  said  "Now  John,  we 
have  lost  the  Union  and  we  cannot  afford  to  fight 
against  our  homes  and  all  we  have.     We  stood  by  the 

38 


Union  as  long  as  there  was  any,  and  now  we  must  not 
forsake  our  homes  and  our  all." 

Going  back  a  little,  in  the  summer  before  I  under- 
took to  teach  a  small  school,  after  crops  were  laid  by. 
Soon  after  I  started  I  took  the  ague  and  had  a  very 
severe  spell,  had  to  have  a  Dr.  with  me  and  took  calo- 
mel and  quinine  for  a  long  time  before  I  got  rid  of  it. 
I  then  had  to  give  up  my  school  and  almost  every  thing 
else  for  a  good  while.  The  Dr.  told  me  to  move  out  of 
that  Cove  or  I  would  die.  The  weeds  and  grass  had 
grown  up  to  such  an  extent  that  I  got  wet  up  to  my* 
waist  every  morning.  So  I  bought  forty  acres  of  land 
out  on  the  public  road  about  one  half  mile  from  where 
I  was.  There  was  a  little  old  house  on  the  place  and  I 
moved  into  that.     I  was  now  living  on  the  public  road. 

We  will  now  go  back  to  the  war.  About  1860  was 
the  time  the  call  was  made  to  arms.  I  listened  to  the 
advice  given  by  Judge  Davis  and  Mr.  Underwood,  but 
did  not  discuss  the  subject  with  them.  It  was  firmly 
fixed  in  my  mind  that  I  would  never  go  back  on  ''Old 
Glory".  I  had  heard  too  much  from  my  old  grand 
parents  about  the  sufferings  and  privations  they  had  to 
endure  during  The  Revolutionary  War  to  ever  engage 
against  the  ''Stars  and  Stripes".  However,  I  went  slow 
and  talked  but  little  and  thought  by  not  talking  either 
for  or  against  it  and  giving  them  all  they  asked  for,  and 
treating  them  kindly  they  woulld  let  me  alone. 
Although  they  were  taking  our  outspoken  friends  off, 
putting  them  in  jail,  and  punishing  them  in  all  sorts  of 
ways.  We  entertained  all  the  rebel  soldiers  in  any 
way  we  could  as  we  lived  on  the  public  highway  and 
they  were  continually  calling  on  us  to  stop  over  for  the 
night,  and  often  they  would  steal  all  they  could  get  their 
hands  on.  Many  of  them  would  abuse  me  for  not  be- 
ing with  the  army;  of  course,  I  had  to  take  it  although  I 
was  loath  to  do  so.  I  loved  my  wife  and  children  and 
it  was  almost  like  death  to  have  to  go  off  and  leaVef 
them,  especially  at  such  a  time  as  this.     I  cherished  the 

39 


hope  that  Uncle  Sam  would  surely  put  them  all  to  death 
at  an  early  day  and  I  would  stand  it  the  best  I  could. 
My  happy  days  now  seemed  to  be  at  an  end,  all  was 
trouble  and  disappointments.  I  soon  began  to  think  if 
Uncle  Sam  did  not  hurry  up  I  would  have  to  leave  home. 
I  moved  my  family  back  into  the  Cove  where  they  would 
not  be  in  such  a  public  place  and  might  escape,  at  least, 
some  of  the  impositions. 

In  the  fall  of  1861  or  1862  I  do  not  remember  the 
date,  I  worked  that  day,  gathering  corn.  About  ten 
o'clock  that  night  the  rebel  soldiers  called  me  up  and 
asked  me  to  go  with  them  to  arrest  some  of  my  neigh- 
bor, whom  they  claimed  were  tories.  I  tried  to  beg  off 
from  them  in  various  ways,  but  they  told  me  if  I  was  not 
willing  to  go,  then  they  would  arrest  me.  I  then  knew 
what  was  up.  They  said  for  me  to  carry  my  gun,  which 
I  did.  They  charged  one  house  but  found  no  one  there 
but  women,  however  they  waylaid  the  house  all  night 
waiting  for  some  one  to  come  in.  They  strated  on  and 
met  some  of  our  neighbors  in  the  road  and  handcuffed 
them.  They  w^ent  on  to  Alex  Underwood's  arresting 
all  they  met.  They  got  some  liquor  to  drink  and  con- 
scripted me  and  one  of  my  neighbors,  and  that  told  us 
that  knew  w^e  were  all  right,  and  they  gave  us  a  fur- 
lough and  said  we  could  go  back  home  and  get  ready 
to  come  on.  The  others  were  handcuffed  and  driven 
off  like  brutes.  I  then  found  keeping  a  still  tongue  had 
been  some  advantage. 

We  then  began  to  make  preparations  to  go  as  every 
one  did  who  went  to  the  Rebel  army.  I  had  a  little 
tow  head  mule  to  ride,  so  I  took  him  to  Hugh  McClellan 
who  shod  him  for  me.  After  he  got  through  he  looked 
at  the  mule  and  remarked  to  me,  ''The  first  battle  you 
get  in  that  mule  will  run  off  and  the  first  thing  you 
know  he  will  have  you  in  the  Yankee  Army".  That 
meant  something,  but  I  never  replied.  Well,  we,  Ans 
Plyde  and  I  left  out  before  our  furlough  expired  for 
Glen  Dale,  Miss.,  the  place  we  were  to  go  to.   We  spent 

40 


the  first  night  at  old  Judge  Anderson's  at  Good  Springs, 
beyond  Russelville.  We  told  him  where  we  were  going 
and  he  cursed  the  Rebels,  and  told  us  we  had  better  go 
to  the  Yankees,  they  were  at  the  East  Port  then.  He 
was  a  staunch  Union  man  and  said  what  he  pleased 
and  used  plenty  of  curse  words.  We  went  on  to  Tus- 
cumbia  down  the  M.  and  C.  rail  road.  We  met  lots  of 
rebel  soldiers  who  were  leaving  Gun  Town  and  aiming 
to  encamp  that  night  at  Cherokee.  They  said  we  need 
not  go  to  Gun  Town  that  the  command  (Roddy's)  would 
be  there  that  night,  but  we  went  right  on.  Hyde  got 
sick  that  day,  he  had  a  bowel  trouble.  He  was  not 
used  to  horse  back  riding  any  way  as  he  plowed  a  steer 
and  did  not  own  a  horse  until  he  got  this  one.  He  had 
an  old  picked  up  saddle,  with  some  ropes  for  stirrup 
leathers  and  sat  humped  up  on  his  horse,  and  was  about 
skinned  all  over.  He  got  awfully  home  sick  and  said 
he  was  going  to  die  if  he  did  not  get  to  go  back  home. 
He  kept  begging  me  to  go  back  with  him  but  I  stead- 
fastly refused  to  do  so.  By  this  time  we  were  going 
down  Bear  Creek,  and  near  Chickasaw,  which  was  on 
the  east  side  of  Bear  Creek,  and  is  now  called  Riverton. 
The  Yankees  were  stationed  at  East  Port  on  the  west 
side  of  the  creek.  We  were  now  out  of  danger  for  we 
had  not  seen  a  rebel  for  some  miles.  Hyde  stopped 
his  horse  got  off  and  lay  down  in  the  road  and  cried 
like  a  child.  He  looked  awfully  bad  and  I  was  real 
sorry  for  him,  I  told  him  to  go  back  to  Cherokee  and  go 
on  v/ith  the  Rebs,  which  we  would  both  do  if  we  turned 
back  and  I  had  as  soon  be  in  hell.  He  would  hear 
to  nothing  but  for  me  to  go  back  with  him,  and  if  I  did 
not  he  was  going  to  lie  there  until  he  died,  for  it  was 
death  any  way.  If  we  went  on  to  the  Yankees  they 
would  shoot  us  down  at  the  picket  post.  I  finally 
yielded  to  his  entreaties,  if  he  would  promise  me  that  he 
would  keep  his  mouth  shut  and  let  me  do  the  talking 
when  occasion  required. 

The  chances  looked  bad  for  us  to  get  back  as  we  had 

41 


to  go  back  through  Roddy's  camp  at  Cherokee,  as  it 
would  not  do  to  try  to  surround  them,  and  we  would 
just  make  a  bold  front.  So  we  went  on  to  Chickasaw 
and  bought  us  a  sack  of  salt  apiece  and  put  it  on  our 
horses  in  front  of  us  and  started  back.  It  was  then 
nearly  night.  We  got  to  Roddy's  camp  about  dark. 
When  we  came  to  the  guards  a  mile  or  so  from  the  camp 
we  told  the  officers  of  the  guard  that  we  belonged  to 
the  the  command.  The  corporal  remarked  that  it 
would  be  useless  to  send  a  guard  in  with  us  as  we  were 
soldiers  and  they  were  busy  putting  out  the  pickets  at 
that  time.  This  was  very  pleasing  to  us.  We  rode 
right  on  in  through  Roddy's  camp.  They  were  busy 
cooking  supper  and  no  one  seemed  to  notice  us.  We 
soon  got  to  the  pickets  on  that  side,  which  was  not 
guarded  so  closely  at  the  side  next  to  the  Yanks.  I 
told  them  we  were  citizens  that  lived  up  in  the  valley 
and  that  we  had  been  to  Chickasaw  after  salt.  That 
seemed  to  satisfy  them.  Now  we  began  to  think  we 
had  passed  the  worst  part  of  the  danger,  and  Hyde 
began  to  complain  again,  the  excitement  now  thought 
to  be  over.  Soon  as  we  were  going  o  nin  the  dark,  a 
sharp  voice  sounded  out  loudly,  ''Halt,  who  comes 
there"?  My  response  was,  'Triends,  with  out  the 
counter  sign".  We  advanced  slowly  and  met  up  with 
a  bunch  of  Rebel  soldiers  with  a  lot  of  prisoners,  taking 
them  to  camp.  Some  were  hand  cuffed  and  others 
tied  together.  I  informed  them  we  were  citizen  who 
had  been  after  salt,  and  thy  kept  moving  on  except  the 
one  who  was  interviewing  us.  He  did  not  seem  to  be 
satisfied,  exactly,  with  our  answer.  I  touched  my 
mule  with  a  spur  and  told  him  to  look  out  for  those 
fellows  and  not  let  any  of  them  get  away,  as  we  did 
not  need  them.  He  took  my  advice  much  to  our  grati- 
fication. 

Our  chance  was  to  take  to  the  woods  and  travel 
only  at  night  for  any  degree  of  safety.  Hyde  got 
along  pretty  well  while  the  excitement  lasted,  but  he 

42 


was  too  sick  for  it  to  last  long  as  he  was  then  about  ex- 
hausted. I  was  also  very  tired  so  we  turned  out  and 
lay  down  in  an  old  out  house,  to  get  some  sleep  and 
get  somewhat  refreshed.  We  were  up  and  out  before 
daylight  to  get  some  place  siutable  to  conceal  ourselves 
that  day,  which  we  found  and  did.  At  night  we  took 
our  course  and  got  in  home  before  day  light  the  next 
morning. 

Now  it  was  noised  abroad  that  we  were  in  the  Rebel 
army  and  it  occurred  to  us  that  we  must  keep  oursleves 
secluded  as  we  would  and  our  families  too  have  some 
protection  while  that  was  the  thought.  Soon  they 
found  we  were  not  in  the  Rebel  army,  and  next  thought 
was  we  had  gone  to  the  Yankees.  This  meant  the  con- 
fiscation of  our  property.  I  had  by  industry,  labor, 
and  economy  accumulated  some  property  and  was  out 
of  debt.  I  had  about  seventy  five  head  of  cattle  and 
the  same  number  of  hogs  and  four  head  of  horses  and 
mules.  I  had  made  a  big  corn  crop  and  had  about  a 
thousand  bushels  of  corn  and  plenty  of  fodder  and  hay, 
I  had  lots  of  bees  and  a  lot  of  Confederate  money  on 
hand.  Now  my  liberty  was  gone  and  I  could  not  work 
for  my  family  nor  enjoy  their  association,  which  made 
my  life  miserable  to  me.  They  commenced  robbing 
my  family  of  the  support  I  had  left  for  them,  they  drove 
off  my  cattle  and  took  my  horses  and  mules,  also  my 
corn.  They  even  went  so  far  as  to  pour  what  meal  my 
family  had  out  in  the  floor  and  fill  the  sacks  with  meat. 
They  even  took  their  cups,  saucers  and  plates,  not  leav- 
ing any  thing  for  their  sustenance. 

I  went  home  one  morning  about  daylight,  to  see  how 
they  were  getting  along.  Spies  were  concealed,  lying 
in  wait  for  me.  They  ordered  me  to  halt  but  I  turned 
back  the  way  I  had  come.  They  fired  a  volley  at  me, 
but  I  escaped  without  a  scratch,  I  only  lost  my  old  straw 
hat.  They  did  not  pursue  me,  for  I  waited  for  them, 
as  soon  as  I  found  an  advantageous  place.  I  then  went 
to  a  house  and  sent  a  woman,  Prudie  Tidwell,  to  tell  my 

43 


wife  that  I  was  not  hurt  and  to  bring  me  me  something 
to  eat  if  there  was  any  thing  left,  and  not  be  uneasy* 
about  me.  She  stayed  nearly  all  day,  waiting  for  the 
Rebs  to  leave,  and  then  started  on  her  way  with  some- 
thing for  me  to  eat.  Hyde  was  with  me  and  I  told  him 
they  might  follow  Prudie  when  she  started  back  and  I 
was  going  to  waylay  her  path  way.  After  a  while  I 
saw  her  coming,  and  a  lot  of  armed  men  slipping  along 
after  her.  I  placed  myself  in  a  good  position  and  when 
they  got  to  a  certain  point  I  fired  my  squirrel  rifle  at 
them.  I  watched  them  for  a  while  and  there  was  some 
old  fashioned  running  done  by  them.  Prudie  had  a 
lot  to  tell  us,  she  said  there  was  a  whole  regiment  there 
and  that  the  Colonel  said  he  going  to  turn  over  every 
leaf  in  that  country  or  have  us. 

So  we  concluded  to  leave  the  neighborhood,  for  a 
while  at  least,  took  to  the  woods  and  went  to  Buck 
West's,  on  the  Biler  Road,  in  Winston  Co.,  where  Natu- 
ral Bridge  now  is.  Buck  was  a  sort  of  a  Secesh,  had 
two  boys,  Lucien  and  Buddy,  in  the  Rebel  army.  Bud- 
dy was  at  home  on  a  furlough  at  that  time.  Buck  was 
a  good  friend  of  mine  and  had  sent  me  word  if  I  got  in 
a  tight  to  come  to  his  house  and  he  would  care  for  me 
and  keep  me  out  of  danger.  I  went  up  to  Buck's  house 
and  had  a  talk  with  him  and  he  told  me  to  go  down  on 
the  creek  above  his  field,  and  I  would  find  a  rock 
house  under  a  bluff  and  he  and  Buddy  would  come 
that  night  to  us.  I  had  left  those  who  were  with  me 
out  in  the  bushes  while  I  went  into  the  house  to  talk  to 
Buck  and  let  him  know  we  had  come.  While  we  were 
sitting  on  the  porch  talking,  some  armed  Rebels  rode 
up  to  his  gate.  He  went  to  the  gate  to  talk  to  them 
and  I  went  too.  I  was  hatless  all  the  time  and  had  a 
red  handkerchief  tied  around  my  head.  They  told 
Buck  that  they  had  a  regiment  camped  over  in  the  Cove, 
hunting  for  a  Tory,  and  that  they  were  going  to  get  him 
before  they  left  there.  They  said  that  they  had  shot 
him  and  seriously  wounded  him,  even  got     his     hat. 

44 


However,  he  got  away  from  them  and  shot  at  some  of 
their  men  the  same  day.  I  looked  at  Buck  and  he 
looked  like  a  dead  man,  his  lips  were  as  blue  as  the  sky. 
They  left  and  Buck  told  me,  'Tor  God's  sake  get  away 
as  soon  as  possible  and  go  where  I  told  you."  I  picked 
up  my  old  gun  which  I  had  laid  down  on  the  porch  and 
made  my  exit,  and  we  went  on  to  the  place  that  Buck 
had  told  us  to.  About  night  Bill  Dodd  came  in.  He 
had  been  keeping  out  of  the  army  on  the  forty-year 
limit,  but  orders  had  been  received  to  take  up  and  in- 
clude the  men  forty  years  old.  So  Dodd  had  heard  all 
of  this  and  had  got  him  a  supply  of  quilts  and  blankets, 
and  a  lot  of  light  bread  and  meat  and  come  to  us.  He 
had  killed  a  deer  on  his  way  and  had  it  on  his  back. 
He  had  his  blankets  tied  on  him  in  a  saddle  blanket 
form  and  he  got  down  on  his  all  fours  like  a  horse  and 
put  his  blankets  across  his  back  and  went  about  the 
camp  in  that  style,  saying  that  he  had  come  to  stay  with 
us.  He  said  that  he  was  going  to  stay  until  the  grass 
grew  on  his  back  a  foot  long., He  seemed  in  high  spirits. 
About  night  Buck  and  Buddy  came  with  a  load  of  pro- 
visions, and  by  this  time  others  had  come  in  and  we  had 
a  jolly  time.  We  also  had  enough  on  hand  to  eat  and 
do  us  a  month.  We  stayed  around  there  for  some  time, 
until  things  got  quieted  down  a  little. 

I  had  a  very  trying  experience,  I  do  not  know  the 
date  and  have  no  means  of  finding  out  the  date,  our 
oldest  little  girl  was  taken  ill  and  died  in  the  yard.  I 
went  home  as  soon  as  I  heard  of  it.  The  neighbor 
women  were  assembled  there  and  told  me  to  just  leave 
at  once  as  the  Rebels  were  going  to  guard  the  grave  to 
get  me.  I  told  them  that  I  was  going  to  stay  there  and 
bury  my  child  regardless  of  the  whole  Rebel  army  as  I 
did  not  fear  them.  Any  way  I  had  just  as  soon  be  dead 
as  to  live  the  life  I  was  having  to  live,  and  that  I  would 
stay  right  there  and  shoot  them  as  long  as  I  had 
strength  in  my  body  to  pull  a  trigger.  They  begged 
me  to  leave  saying  that  I  would  be  killed  and     (they 

45  ; 


would  too.  That  the  Rebels  would  burn  up  every 
thing  we  had.  They  just  took  hold  of  me  and  pulled 
and  pushed  at  me  until  they  made  me  go.  The  good 
women  and  some  little  boys  buried  our  little  girl,  Sa- 
lome. I  then  resolved  to  shoot  every  Rebel  soldier  I 
saw,  if  my  chance  for  escape  looked  good,  this  I  did. 
At  one  time  I  was  crossing  the  Biler  Road  in  Winston 
County  by  my  self,  a  regiment  of  Rebels  came  along. 
As  soon  as  they  had  passed  I  went  up  the  road  and  fired 
at  them  in  the  rear.  It  stampeded  them  and  they 
double  quicked  it  away  from  there  and  I  did  the  same 
thing. 

I  had  a  friend,,  Riley  Cole,  whom  I  knew  in  Georgia, 
who  lived  over  near  Sipsey  River  and  I  made  my  way 
over  there  as  I  wanted  some  advice.  He  was  too  old  for 
the  army  but  he  thought  he  could  hitch  up  a  two  horse 
team  and  go  to  North  Carolina  and  Georgia.  He  also 
thought  he  could  hide  me  when  it  was  necessary  and 
we  might  get  along  some  way  until  the  war  was  over. 
We  needed  some  double  trees  and  some  other  harness, 
that  I  had  at  home,  to  make  our  equipment  complete. 
So  he  sent  his  boy  along  with  me  home  to  get  the  equip- 
ment. We  made  the  trip  in  the  night.  A  man.  Bill 
Weatherford,  fell  in  with  us  and  we  all  went  on  to- 
gether. He  was  a  strong  Union  man  but  was  exempt 
under  the  forty  year  limit.  We  were  going  along  a 
trail  near  where  Delmar  nov/  is,  when  we  were  com- 
pletely surrounded  by  a  gang  of  Rebels,  and  were 
promptly  arrested.  They  took  us  to  the  old  man  Henry 
McNutt's  and  called  for  something  to  eat.  He  got  up 
and  went  to  his  cellar  and  got  out  some  potatoes  all  he 
said  he  had.  We  roasted  and  ate  them  and  then  went 
on.  They  arrested  Bill  McNutt,  the  old  man's  son,  and 
carried  him  also.  We  went  to  the  old  Stamford  place 
on  Buttahatchee.  They  put  us  in  an  old  house  that 
had  but  one  door.  They  brought  them  in  from  differ- 
ent directions  and  by  daylight  they  had  forty  of  us 
jugged  in.     The  next  day  we  were  brought  out  before 

46 


Adjutant  May  to  hear  our  doom.  He  commenced  on 
Weatherford  first,  wanted  to  know  why  he  was  not  in 
the  army.  Weatherford  replied  that  he  was  forty. 
May  said  that  was  the  age  they  were  wanting  them. 
Weatherford  replied  that  he  would  go  then  but  would 
go  then  but  would  like  to  go  by  home  and  get  some 
clothes  as  he  was  not  expecting  this  when  he  left  home, 
and  besides  he  was  badly  afflicted  with  rheumatism. 
To  all  this  the  reply  was,  it  would  be  a  long  time  before 
he  would  see  home  any  more,  that  they  had  a  Dr.  that 
would  fix  up  his  rheumatism  and  that  he  would  get 
up  some  clothes  for  him.  The  consolation  he  got 
taught  me  how  to  answer  when  my  turn  came.  He 
turned  to  me  to  know  my  age,  general  condition,  and 
why  it  was  that  I  was  not  in  the  army  (disdainfully). 
I  told  him  I  was  twenty-five  years  old,  sound  and 
healthy,  as  I  had  never  been  sick  a  minute  in  my  life. 
I  told  him  the  reason  I  was  not  in  the  army  was  because 
I  did  not  want  to  go.  He  told  me,  ''I  shall  send  you  to 
Richmond."  I  told  him  that  it  would  take  more  than 
him  to  send  me  there.  He  ordered  all  of  us  to  be  put 
back  in  the  guard  house.  The  old  room  got  so  full 
that  they  had  to  send  a  lot  of  us  off  to  get  room  for 
more,  as  this  seemed  to  a  sort  of  headquarters  foit 
them.  A  man  by  the  name  of  Gibson,  I  will  tell  more 
about  him  later  on,  was  with  them  and  seemed  to  take 
an  active  part  in  this  business. 

One  man  had  the  water  to  carry  for  the  crowd.  It 
was  taken  by  turns  and  I  was  very  anxious  for  my  turn 
to  come  to  go  for  the  water  for  I  might  get  a  chance  to 
get  away,  but  after  making  my  first  trip  I  did  not  care 
to  go  any  more  as  the  chances  were  too  slim.  The  next 
day  we  were  to  be  sent  off.  They  were  going  to  send 
me  and  possibly  some  others  to  Richmond;  the  others 
were  to  be  sent  to  Roddy.  The  place  where  we  were 
confined  was  too  filthy  for  a  hog  to  stay.  We  had  to 
lie  on  the  florr  all  huddled  together.     They  had  great 

47 


pots  of  beef  boiled  up  and  we  had  to  stand  all  huddled 
up  and  eat  it  off  the  bone. 

A  good  many  Rebel  sympathizers  would  come 
around  the  camp,  among  them  was  Burrel,  Lang  Allen 
and  Jim  Allen  who  knew  me.  They  got  in  with  Adj. 
May  and  asked  him  to  let  me  have  a  furlough,  they 
told  him  they  would  sign  any  kind  of  a  bond  that  he* 
wanted  him  to  with  me.  So  I  was  released  and  went 
home.  Of  course,  I  thought  that  I  would  have  to  go  as 
I  could  not  afford  not  to,  as  they  had  befriended  mef 
and  I  could  not  afford  to  give  them  any  trouble. 
Under  no  other  circumstance  would  I  have  gone.  These 
men  have  told  me  since  then  that  the  bond  they  signed 
with  me  was  not  worth  any  thing,  that  they  signed  it 
on  purpose  to  obtain  my  freedom  and  it  was  not  com- 
pulsory on  them  nor  me  to  go  to  the  Southern  army. 
Had  I  known  that  I  would  have  gone  another  way. 
However  I  went  on  and  was  put  in  Roddy's  army  ati 
Tuscumbia.  There  I  saw  many  Union  men  that  I 
knew,  more  especially  Cal  Miles  from  New  River.  The 
first  night  they  put  me  out  on  picket,  Cal  and  I  were  put 
on  the  out  post.  He  and  I  neither  loaded  our  guns, 
but  prayed  for  the  Yankees  to  come,  for  we  were  going 
to  surrender  and  go  with  them  had  they  come. 

The  next  thing  was  to  go  on  a  scouting  trip  near 
luka.  The  Yanks  met  us  and  Roddy  ran  for  life.  I 
had  thought  all  the  time  that  I  would  get  through  the 
lines  in  the  first  engagement  but  the  Rebs  kept  the  rear 
so  closely  guarded  that  there  no  chances.  When 
any  one  would  stop  there  was  some  Reb  ready  to  draw 
his  gun  and  order  to  close  up,  so  I  had  no  chance  to  get 
through.  Bill  McNutt  got  shot  through  the  leg  by  a 
Yankee  bullet,  this  caused  his  death.  I  got  sick  about 
this  time  and  was  sent  to  what  they  called  a  hospital 
I  was  put  on  a  pallet  on  the  floor  by  the  side  of  a  man 
named  Wamsley.  He  died  pretty  soon  and  that  left 
me  on  the  pallet  alone.  Mose  Pace,  one  of  our  com- 
rades at  the  Stamford  prison  died  while  I  was  there. 

48 


A  man  who  lived  near  Allen's  factory  died  and  they 
wanted  to  send  him  home  for  bural  and  I  had  a  mule  in 
camp  and  was  not  able  for  service,  they  told  me  if  I  was 
able  to  make  the  trip  I  could  go.  This  I  gladly  did. 
After  taking  him  home  I  went  on  to  my  home  and 
stayed  there  until  I  got  a  notice  to  meet  the  command 
at  R.  A.  Mitchell's,  just  across  the  river  from  Greene 
Haley's. 

I  did  not  intend  to  go  but  a  friend  of  mine  who  stood 
in  with  the  officials  told  me  to  go  on  with  him  and  we 
would  both  get  a  furlough  and  not  be  bothered  for  a 
while.  So  I  went,  but  did  not  carry  my  gun.  When  we 
got  there  the  officer  in  charge  gave  us  a  cussing  for 
not  having  our  guns.  He  passed  some  guns,  any  kind 
he  could  get,  to  those  who  were  not  armed.  When 
they  came  around  the  line  to  distribute  the  guns  I 
pulled  my  little  mule  behind  a  horse  and  they  passed 
me  unnoticed.  They  headed  out  in  the  direction  of 
Winston  Co.  to  make  a  raid.  When  we  got  about  op- 
posite where  I  lived  I  rode  out  of  the  line,  during  a 
shower  of  rain,  and  sat  down  at  the  root  of  a  large  tree. 
The  rear  guard  passed  and  shouted  to  me  to  fall  in  line. 
I  told  him  I  was  sick,  had  no  gun,  and  was  not  going 
any  further.  This  man  was  Ham  Carpenter  and  he 
told  me  to  go  home  and  report  at  Fort  Mitchell  as  they 
called  it.  I  went  back  home  and  made  other  arrange- 
ments and  that  was  the  last  time  the  Rebs  ever  had  me. 

I  took  to  the  woods  and  hid  out.  There  was  an  old 
man  by  the  name  of  Roberts  who  moved  from  Randolph 
County  about  the  commencement  of  the  war  and 
entered  him  a  home  on  the  south  side  of  the  Cove.  He 
was  an  industrious  man,  and  had  some  money  and  a  big 
family  of  children.  He  had  a  team  and  brought  in  a 
few  things  to  sell,  groceries  and  such  like,  and  his 
neighbors  bought  his  stuff,  and  borrowed  his  money, 
and  did  not  pay  him  back.  He  was  taken  sick  and 
died  and  his  widow  soon  ran  through  with  what  he  had 
left,  and  was  in  want.     The  oldest  girl  was  named  Mary 

49 


and  I  made  arrangements  with  her  mother  for  Mary 
to  go  and  live  with  my  wife,  for  I  knew  well  that  I 
would  have  to  leave  the  country  until  the  war  was  over. 
We  began  to  meet  in  bunches  to  consult  the  best  thing 
to  do  as  it  looked  as  though  something  would  have  to 
be  done.  No  one  was  left  to  work  and  to  make  any- 
thing except  small  boys,  old  men  and  women.  The 
Rebels  had  been  robbing  all  the  time  until  there  was 
not  much  left  to  subsist  on. 

We  kept  on  sending  word  among  our  sort  and  let- 
ting them  know  our  meeting  place,  until  as  well  as  I 
remember  there  were  three  or  four  hundred  of  us  got 
together  at  a  big  bluff  down  below  Natural  Bridge  on 
the  head  waters  of  New  River.  Some  four  or  five 
counties  were  represented  and  we  finally  agreed  that 
we  make  three  propositions  and  let  each  one  walk  out 
and  join  the  side  that  he  wanted  to  take.  'Tirst,  all 
that  want  to  join  the  Rebel  Army  step  out." 
Not  a  man  stepped  out.  ''All  that  want  to  go 
to  the  North  and  join  the  Union  Army,  step 
out."  There  were  over  a  hundred  men  stepped  out. 
Number  three  were  left  to  decide  for  themselves.  We 
then  began  to  make  arrangements  and  set  a  day  when 
we  would  start.  Some  of  the  number  lived  in  Ran- 
dolph Co.,  Fayette,  Winston,  Marion,  Franklin,  Jeffer- 
son and  some  were  from  Mississippi.  We  set  a  day 
and  when  the  time  came  for  those  south  of  us  to  pass 
through  the  Cove  where  we  lived  we  fell  in  with  them. 
They  kept  on  falling  in  with  us  and  over  taking  us  un- 
til there  were  a  hundred  or  more  of  us.  All  had  haver- 
sacks with  provisions  in  them,  as  much  as  we  could  get 
on  with.  We  told  all  we  could  find  or  hear  of  that 
wanted  to  go  to  fall  in  line,  that  we  were  going  to  stem 
the  flood,  live  or  die. 

We  had  a  tough  old  time  our  food  gave  out,  and 
of  all  the  tired,  worn  out,  hungry  set  you  could 
imagine,  we  were  that.  Almost  all  of  us  were  on  foot, 
there  were  some  few  horses  in  the  bunch.     The  rag- 

50 


gedest,  bare-footedest  and  most  hatless  set  you  ever 
saw.  Finally,  many  of  the  weaker  ones  had  given  out 
and  were  at  the  mercy  of  any  one  who  might  come  up 
with  us.  We  consulted  over  the  situation  and  decided 
for  two  of  the  bunch  to  get  on  horses  at  night,  hit  the 
road  and  go  in  haste  through  the  line.  We  were  then 
some  twenty  miles  from  the  nearest  station  of  the 
Yanks.  They  got  through  that  night  and  the  com- 
mander ordered  out  a  detachment  of  soldiers,  provis- 
ions, and  horses  sufficient  to  supply  the  demands. 
Here  they  came  double  quick  and  all  of  the  rejoicing, 
shouting,  and  shaking  hands  you  could  inmagine  it 
took  jV)lace  then  for  we  had  met  with  our  friends  at 
last. 

In  uniform,  mounted,  and  well  armed,  equipped 
with  every  thing  we  needed  one  cannot  imagine  how 
happy  and  brave  we  all  felt.  After  eating  a  hearty 
meal  we  mounted  the  horses  they  had  brought  us  and 
rode  in  with  out  any  further  trouble.  We  all  enlisted 
in  the  U.  S.  Army  with  out  any  medical  examination  as 
we  all  wanted  to  enlist.  I  told  them  the  Rebs  had  con- 
scripted me  and  would  claim  me  as  a  deserter  and  I 
never  would  suffer  myself  to  be  captured  by  them, 
alive.  The  head  officer  said  he  would  appoint  me 
Co.  Sergt.  and  that  would  relieve  me  from  guard  duty, 
and  place  me  in  a  position  that  would  shield  me  from 
the  chance  of  being  captured  as  much  as  possible.  I 
accepted  this.  We  were  then  put  on  drill  for  quite 
awhile.  Many  of  the  boys  got  sick  and  many  of  them 
died,  the  change  in  diet  and  habits  had  a  good  deal  to 
do  with  it.  We  all  drilled  hard,  early  and  late  fixing 
to  get  in  fighting  shape  and  out  on  guard  duty,  until 
we  got  ready  for  the  field. 

The  first  engagement  that  was  worth  speaking  of, 
was  in  Miss.  We,  were  the  whole  regiment,  had  two 
small  howitzers,  wagons,  teams  and  pack  mules  with 
tools  on  them  to  tear  up  R.  R.  tracks.  Of  course,  none 
of  us  knew  where  we  were  going  nor  when  we  would 

51 


come  back.  We  were  all  loaded  down  with  ammuni- 
tion and  bountiful  supplies.  We  started  south  when 
we  got  to  the  line  of  Walker  Co.,  Ala.  We  got  orders 
to  turn  back  which  we  did  and  met  with  Gen.  Wheeler's 
command  with  five  thousand  men,  who  were  sent  out 
in  pursuit  of  us.  We  had  stopped  for  dinner,  just 
about  noon,  and  about  the  time  we  had  been  com- 
manded to  eat  our  lunch  the  pickets  opened  fire  and 
we  got  orders  to  mount.  I  remember  having  my  pan- 
cake about  ready  to  turn  when  the  bugle  blew  to  mount. 
Instead  of  turning  it  over  in  the  pan  I  just  turned  it  over 
the  pommel  of  my  saddle,  with  the  cooked  side  up, 
mounted  and  went  to  eating  on  the  crust  as  we  were 
preparing  to  go  in  my  first  fight.  We  felt  like  we 
could  whip  the  whole  Rebel  Army.  Our  first  line  was 
down  in  an  old  field.  Just  north  of  us  in  a  thicket  of 
underbrush  were  the  Rebels  and  on  the  right  of  our 
artillery.  We  were  placed  there  to  protect  our  artillery 
on  that  side.  We  could  not  see  the  Rebs  for  the  under- 
brush, but  they  were  firing  into  us  volley  after  volley. 
Some  of  our  company  were  slightly  wounded  in  that 
line.  Our  artillery  was  busy  shelling  the  road.  We 
had  orders  to  fall  back  a  quarter  or  a  half  of  a  mile 
south,  and  were  also  ordered  to  dismount  and  form  a 
line  on  the  right;  our  artillery  had  fallen  back  also. 
The  Rebels  then  came  in  sight  and  we  began  to  do  some 
shooting  in  good  earnest  and  held  them  in  check  for 
awhile.  However,  the  Rebs  soon  brought  up  their 
artillery  and  began  to  rain  constant  shot  among  us. 

We  were  then  ordered  to  mount  which  we,  or  I, 
found  very  difficult  to  do.  As  the  fourth  number  was 
kept  on  horse  back  to  hold  horses  and  that  was  my^ 
number,  I  pursuaded  Clint  Tittle  to  take  my  place 
holding  the  the  horses  and  I  went  in  to  the  battle  in  his 
place.  There  was  so  much  confusion  and  so  much  go- 
ing on  that  it  was  some  time  before  I  found  my  horse. 
I  was  looking  for  Clint  and  he  was  looking  for  me. 
When  I  got  my  horse  I  was  almost  exhausted,  as  I  was 

52 


loaded  down  with  ammunition.     However,  I  felt  good 
when  I  was  again  mounted. 

We  fell  back  from  time  to  time,  formed  lines  and 
defended  ourselves  as  best  we  could  while  retreating. 
This  continued  until  dark,  but  a  little  before  sunset  we 
came  to  a  creek  where  the  road  seemed  to  give     out. 
Here  we  found  our  artillery  deserted  and  did  not  see 
any  way  of  crossing  the  stream.     The  banks  were  from 
six  to  eight  feet  high  and  perpendicular.     The  Rebs 
were  pressing  us  in  the  rear,  charging  us  and  shooting  a 
continuous  volley  in  the  rear.     Our  men  were  shouting 
forward  at  every  breath.     I  plunged  my  horse  off  a 
steep  bank,  into  the  creek  and  he  commenced  pawing 
and  trying  to  go  up  on  the  opposite  bank.     I  slid  off 
of  him  in  the  water  and  assisted  him  all  I  could,  and  as 
he  went  up  the  bank  I  caught  him  by  the  tail  and  went 
out  with  him.     Lieut.  Emerick's  horse  went  in  to  the 
creek  a  few  feet  below  where  mine  went  in,  and  broke 
his  neck.     I  do  not  know  what  became  of  Lieut.  Emer- 
ick  as  I  saw  him  no  more  during  the  engagement.     I 
then  mounted  my  horse  and  started  up  a     long     hill. 
Every  one  that  I  saw  seemed  to  be  excited  and  confused. 
Finally,  I  came  up  with  a  squad  of  soldiers  who  had 
formed  a  line  of  defense,  headed  by  an  old  uncle  Sim 
Tucker,  a  private,  who  was  calling  every  one  that  pass- 
ed to  fall  in  line.     Many  were  too  badly  excited  to  stop 
although  his  gun  was  pointed  in  their  faces.     As  soon 
as  I  saw  Uncle  Sim  in  his  shirt  sleeves  and  bareheaded, 
my  energy  was  renewed  and  I  rode  up  by  his  side  and 
said,  ''Uncle  Sim,  I  will  die  by  your  side."    Soon  all  of 
our  men  had  passed  us,  at  least  those  who  could  not  be 
prevailed  upon  by  us  to  stop  and  fall  in  line.     The 
Rebels  came  in  sight  in  pursuit  of  us.     Uncle  Sim  gave 
orders  to  not  fire  a  gun  until  they  got  near  enough  for 
each  one  of  us  to  get  one  of  them.     They  were  led  by  a 
large  man,  riding  a  gray  horse.     I  took  a  good  aim  at 
him  and  when  the  smoke  went  up  I  saw  him  fall  back- 
wards off  of  his  horse.     I  think  the  whole  bunch  of  us 

53 


shot  at  him,  as  every  one  that  I  talked  to  afterwards 
claimed  the  honor  of  shooting  him. 

We  then  retreated  to  a  good  position  and  waited 
for  another  attack  and  continued  this  until  dark.  At 
one  time  in  making  the  retreat  my  horse  ran  astride  a 
sapling  that  lifted  his  hind  legs  off  of  the  ground,  and 
I  fell  off  of  the  right  side  of  him.  My  left  foot  caught 
in  my  baggage  and  ammunition  bag  on  the  rear  end  of 
my  saddle  and  my  right  hand  on  the  ground.  In  this 
condition  I  struggled  for  a  while  but  finally  I  regained 
my  position  in  the  saddle.  By  this  time  the  Rebels., 
were  in  a  few  yards  of  me  shooting  at  me  continually. 
I  just  fell  over  in  my  saddle  and  reached  after  my 
horse  with  my  spurs  and  soon  caught  up  with  my  com- 
panions. About  dark  we,  about  fifteen  or  twenty  of 
us,  who  had  been  engaged  in  these  skirmishes  came  up 
with  a  bunch  of  our  comrades.  There  were  perhaps 
fifty  of  them  huddled  together  looking  at  something. 
I  saw  our  First  Lieutenant,  Perry,  whom  I  had  not  seen 
since  the  engagement  commenced.  He  was  in  line  and 
I  rode  up  beside  him,  but  just  about  that  time  a  volley 
was  fired  in  to  us  and  Lieut.  Perry  fell  dead  off  of  his 
horse.  I  was  told  afterwards  that  he  was  shot  through 
the  heart.  Another  fell  dead  in  the  line.  I  heard  the 
word,  ''Surrender"  from  some  one,  so  I  just  pulled  back 
my  horse  and  started  west,  the  opposite  direction  from 
^hem.  Going  down  in  to  a  hollow  I  looked  up  on  a 
ridge  in  front  of  me  and  could  see  between  me  and  the 
sky  a  lot  of  mounted  men,  whom  I  was  sure  were  Rebs. 
About  this  time  four  or  five  soldiers  came  down  the 
hill  the  way  I  had  come.  I  called  their  attention  to 
what  I  saw  and  we  all  concluded  they  were  the  enemy. 
Our  chance  then  was  to  go  down  that  hollow  far  enough 
to  avoid  danger  then  go  west  far  enough  to  avoid  con- 
tact with  the  enemy,  and  then  turn  north  to  get  back  to 
our  lines.  We  had  to  leave  our  horses  and  side  arms 
as  we  did  not  see  much  chance  of  getting  away  with 
out  being  captured  with  our  horses.     Before  day  we 

54 


passed  through  a  corn  field  and  each  of  us  secured  an 
ear  of  corn,  and  that  was  about  all  we  got  to  eat  for  the 
next  three  days. 

It  was  estimated  that  we  did  not  have  more  than  five 
hundred  men  in  this  engagement.  The  writer  had  a 
talk  with  Gen.  Wheeler  about  this  engagement.  He 
said  that  he  had  made  preparations  to  capture  every- 
one of  us,  that  he  knew  our  number  and  our  wherea- 
bouts, that  he  had  never  met  as  brave  and  determined 
set  before.  To  his  great  surprise,  he  did  not  capture 
a  single  prisoner.  Some  twenty  odd  men  were  killed, 
most  of  them  were  officers. 

Going  back  to  when  we  made  our  escape.  When 
daylight  came  we  discovered  one  of  our  bunch  was  a 
Rebel  soldier  who  was  trying  to  make  his  escape  into 
the  Union  lines.  So  he  remained  with  us.  There 
were  five  of  us  in  this  bunch  and  we  were  three  day's 
getting  back  to  our  lines.  During  this  time  we  were 
without  food,  and  passed  through  large  swamps  and 
waded  water  that  was  some  times  up  to  our  necks.  We 
had  to  stay  hidden  all  of  one  day  between  two  roads, 
where  we  saw  hundreds  of  Rebs  pass  us. 

After  we  got  back  to  our  company  we  moved  from 
Glendale,  our  former  camp  to  Corinth.  From  Corinth 
we  moved  to  a  stockade  on  the  M.  &  O.  railroad  south 
of  Corinth  which  was  called  Camp  Davis.  I  think  this 
was  built  by  the  Rebs  before  the  evacuation  of  Corinth. 
We  had  a  good  deal  to  do  while  there,  scouting  through 
the  country  and  patrolling  the  little  towns  on  the  M. 
and  C.  Rail  Road.  We  occasionally  had  engagements 
with  squads  of  Rebs.  While  there  we  made  a  big  raid 
with  Gen.  Wisener  in  command,  down  the  M.  &  O. 
R.  R.,  tearing  up  the  track  and  burning  corn  and  pro- 
visions, that  the  Rebs  were  shipping  to  Atlanta,  Ga.  to 
supply  their  forces  while  they  were  engaged  with 
General  Sherman.  We  had  a  hard  seige  on  this  trip, 
so  much  happened  and  so  much  was  to  do  and  to  be 
done  that  I  shall  not  attempt  to  go  in  to  the  details. 

55 


While  I  was  with  others  on  detail  we  had  to  dismount 
and  roll  the  cannon  wheels  to  get  them  through  a 
swamp.  The  column  kept  on  the  move  and  when  we 
were  through  we  were  several  miles  from  our  com- 
mand, and  had  to  make  double  quick  time  through 
the  woods,  as  the  roads  were  full  and  we  wanted  to 
catch  up  with  our  several  commands. 

My  horse  happened  to  the  misfortune  of  falling 
down,  and  on  me.  This  hurt  me  to  the  extent  that 
I  was  not  able  to  mount  for  quite  a  while.  However, 
by  considerable  exertion  I  finally  got  on  him  and  went 
on.  It  was  several  days  and  nights  before  I  was  able 
to  take  off  my  coat,  as  the  greater  part  of  my  hurt  was 
in  my  shoulders.  We  captured  so  many  prisoners  and 
contraband  that  it  was  necessary  to  send  a  detachment 
back  to  camp  with  these  prisoners  and  stuff  that  was 
not  needed.  I  was  on  that  detail,  and  we  sure  did 
have  a  tough  time  getting  back.  Rain,  high  water, 
swimming  creeks,  repairing  bridges,  and  bush  whack- 
ers were  some  of  the  things  we  had  to  put  up  with. 

One  night  we  were  encamped  at  an  old  barn,  had 
got  a  house  ("with  one  door  in  it  in  which  to  put  our! 
prisoners.  We  had  a  Reb  Col.  in  there  and  during  the 
night  he  succeeded  in  jumping  over  the  guards  and 
making  his  escape  in  his  night  clothes.  It  rained  all 
night  and  we  slept  on  a  hillside  with  our  horses  staked 
out.  The  water  ran  under  us  and  over  us  during  the 
night.  About  daybreak  there  was  a  volley  fired  into 
us.  I  was  up  but  the  greater  part  of  them  were  asleep. 
We  were  all  wet  as  well  as  our  guns,  blankets  and  cloth- 
ing; but  we  were  ordered  to  mount  as  the  firing  had 
ceased  so  we  got  in  readiness  to  march.  We  had  not 
got  far  when  a  volley  was  fired  in  to  us  from  the  rear. 
Our  commander  ordered  a  squad  of  soldiers  to  dismount 
at  a  suitable  place  and  have  their  horses  led  on,  and  the 
command  to  holt  and  await  the  results.  It  was  not  long 
until  the  firing  commenced  and  a  detachment  rushed 
back  to  their  relief  and  found  that  they  had  killed  six 

56 


of  our  pursuers  and  that  ended  the  trouble  for  that  day. 
It  was  necessary  at  every  big  swamp  or  thicket  to  pre- 
pare for  the  skirmish.  We  succeeded  in  getting  back 
without  the  loss  of  any  life,  that  I  know  of. 

Afterwards  we  were  ordered  by  Gen.  Grant  to  re- 
enforce  Sherman's  army  at  Chattanooga.  We  went 
via  Memphis,  Nashville  and  Decatur,  Ala.  We  evacu- 
ated Corinth  and  started  on  our  march  for  Memphis. 
I  was  right  sick  when  we  left  Camp  Davis  and  was  sent 
with  the  ordnance  department  on  the  R.  R.  from  Cor- 
inth, while  the  command  was  sent  on  horse-back. 
When  we  left  Corinth  our  camps  were  all  on  fire.  Our 
first  stop  was  at  La  Grange,  Tenn.  I  slept  on  the  or- 
dance  in  an  old  ware  house,  and  next  morning  I  went 
out  to  see  if  I  could  find  something  to  eat.  Through  a 
mistake  I  went  into  the  small-pox  hospital.  I  was  still 
sick  the  next  day.  However,  the  next  day  the  com- 
mand came  in  and  struck  camp  about  a  mile  north  of 
town.  They  hauled  me  out  with  the  ordance.  We 
were  soon  ordered  out  to  Memphis,  the  command  was  to 
scout  through  and  I  was  sent  with  the  ordnance.  When 
I  got  to  Memphis  I  was  real  sick  and  had  no  where  to 
go  nor  any  one  to  look  after  me.  I  lay  around  on  the 
platform  at  the  depot  until  the  command  struck  camp, 
about  four  miles  out.  The  wagons  came  in  after  the 
ordnance  and  I  was  placed  on  a  wagon  and  hauled  out 
to  camp.  The  Capt.  sent  for  a  Dr.  and  hesaid  I  had 
measles  but  I  thought  it  must  have  been  small-pox  as 
I  had  been  exposed  to  it.  He  sent  me  to  a  large  hospital 
tent,  they  were  just  erecting  and  put  me  on  a  litter.  It 
was  not  long  until  the  tent  was  filled  with  sick  soldiers. 
It  rained  during  the  night  and  the  water  must  have  been 
some  six  inches  deep  all  under  the  tent.  Many  of  the 
sick  were  unconcious  and  were  up  paddling  in  the 
water  all  night,  for  we  had  no  one  to  care  for  us.  I 
was  very  sick  and  could  not  sleep  a  wink,  but  I  knew 
better  than  to  go  out  in  that  water.  The  next  morning 
the  ambulance  came  and  carried  us  to  the  hospital  in 

57 


Memphis.  They  carried  me  to  the  Overton  House,  and 
I  was  only  there  a  few  days  until  I  broke  out  with 
measles.     In  a  few  days  I  felt  as  well  as  ever. 

They  had  taken  all  my  clothes  and  had  given  me  a 
calico  gown  to  wear.  I  lay  there  for  days  just  feeling 
as  well  as  could  be,  and  my  whole  desire  was  to  be  out 
where  I  could  get  some  exercise,  for  I  felt  the  need  of 
it.  I  kept  insisting  on  the  Dr.  letting  me  have  my 
clothes  but  he  would  not.  I  would  get  up  and  run 
around  in  the  room  kicking  the  walls  as  high  as  I  could, 
in  my  thin  calico  gown,  trying  to  get  what  exercise  I 
could;  but  I  would  get  so  cold  that  I  would  have  to  go 
back  to  bed  and  cover  up.  Finally  the  Dr.  agreed  that 
I  could  have  my  clothes  and  sent  a  negro  porter  to  bring 
them.  The  negro  brought  part  of  them  but  one  of  the 
boots  he  brought  was  not  mine  and  I  could  not  wear  it. 
I  sent  him  again  but  with  no  better  results.  I  then 
went  down  three  sets  of  iron  steps,  to  the  baggage 
room  on  the  lower  floor.  They  had  been  carrying 
water  up  the  stairs  and  they  were  wet.  I  finally  got 
my  own  clothes  and  got  them  on  but  by  that  time  I 
needed  a  fire. 

I  went  down  the  same  steps  as  before  to  where 
they  were  cutting  wood.  As  they  only  had  one  axe  I 
had  to  wait  until  my  turn  to  get  it.  The  wind  was  blow- 
ing hard,  right  off  of  the  Miss.  River,  so  I  got  very  cold 
w^hile  waiting  for  the  axe.  When  I  got  the  axe  I  cut 
a  good  load  of  wood  and  carried  it  to  my  room.  This 
was,  as  well  as  I  remember,  about  March,  1864.  I 
made  a  good  fire  and  sat  down  in  front  of  it.  I  soon 
got  very  warm  and  took  a  severe  headache.  I  got  back 
in  bed  and  do  not  remember  anything  that  occurred 
for  many  days.  It  all  seemed  like  a  dream  to  me.  I 
imagined  that  Lieut.  Fishbach,  whom  I  thought  well  of, 
was  punishing  me  all  of  the  time  all  he  could  the  whole 
time  that  I  was  in  this  condition ;  but  he  seemed  to  think 
he  was  helping  me.  I  am  sure  this  was  only  imagina- 
tion.      While  I  was  in  this  condition  Capt.  Trammel 

58 


visited  me,  of  this  I  have  no  recollection.  He  went  back 
and  told  them  that  Sergt.  Phillips  was  going  to  die  and 
all  that  wished  to  see  him  alive  had  better  go  at  once. 
He  gave  them  a  pass  and  I  was  told  that  the  whole  Co. 
came,  but  I  have  no  recollection  of  any  of  them.  The 
first  thing  I  remember  seeing  was  a  Sister  of  Charity 
bending  over  me  trying  to  talk  to  me.  This  Sister 
waited  on  me  from  day  to  day  and  I  owe  my  life  to  her 
close  attention  to  me,  while  I  was  in  this  condition.  I 
have  had  the  kindest  of  feelings  for  them  ever  since 
that  time.  I  am  sure  it  is  by  the  kind  treatment  she 
gave  me  that  I  am  still  in  the  land  of  the  living. 

While  in  camp  at  LaGrange,  Tenn.  I  forgot  to  men- 
tion a  circumstance,  that  took  place  while  we  were 
there.  A  regiment  of  negroes  were  encamped  about 
a  mile  from  our  camp.  Some  of  the  boys,  who  did  not 
like  the  negroes  any  too  well,  for  some  cause  got  to 
shooting  into  their  camp,  and  it  almost  terminated  in  a 
serious  battle,  as  their  officers  were  white  men.  We 
had  orders  to  move  at  once. 

When  I  rejoined  the  command,  many  of  my  com- 
rades were  surprised  as  they  thought  I  had  died.  I 
worried  on  in  the  hospital  for  a  long  time  and  was  not 
able  to  move  or  turn  over  without  help,  and  had  no 
desire  to  get  up.  The  Dr.  told  me  one  morning  that  I 
must  get  up  that  day.  I  told  him  it  was  not  possible, 
that  I  did  not  have  the  strength.  The  next  morning 
when  I  told  him  that  I  did  get  up  he  was  angry,  and 
and  told  me  that  just  had  to  get  up  that  day.  After 
awhile  I  moved  over  to  the  front  of  the  bed  and  eased 
off  on  the  floor.  My  legs  had  no  strength  in  them  so  I 
could  not  stand  up.  I  stayed  out  on  the  floor  for  some 
time  before  I  had  the  courage  to  try  to  get  back  in  bed. 
Finally  I  succeeded  in  getting  back  to  bed.  I  went  to 
sleep  and  do  not  remember  how  long  I  slept  but  it  was 
a  long  time.  The  next  morning  I  told  the  Dr.  of  my 
adventure.  He  was  not  well  pleased  and  talked  rough 
to  me,  he  even  wrote  me  a  pass  and  told  me  I  had  to  go 

59 


out  that  day.  I  contended  with  him  that  it  was  not 
possible  but  he  used  some  threats  and  left.  I  was 
afraid  of  him  and  had  lost  all  resentment  I  had  ever 
had.  I  got  up  and  crawled  around  over  the  floor  un- 
til I  became  exhausted.  I  then  got  back  in  bed  and 
took  another  long  nap. 

Next  morning  he  was  very  worth  with  me  when  I 
told  him  that  I  had  not  left  the  room.  He  gave  me  an- 
other pass  and  said  he  would  dare  me  not  to  go  out  that 
day.  I  knew  that  I  would  be  compelled  to  try  so  I  got 
up  and  crawled  out  of  the  room,  to  the  head  of  the 
stairs,  then  down  the  steps  to  the  lower  floor,  resting 
often  in  the  mean  time.  When  I  got  out  of  the  building 
on  to  the  porch,  the  sun  was  shining  brightly.  While 
holding  to  a  post  to  steady  myself  I  lost  my  grip  and 
fell  full  length  on  the  floor.  A  lot  of  guards  who  were 
stationed  there  picked  me  up,  and  carried  me  back  to 
my  room.  Two  of  them  took  my  arms  and  shoulders 
and  one  my  feet  and  carried  me  back  and  put  me  in 
bed.  They  cursed  that  Dr.  for  every  thing  they  could 
think  of.  This  met  my  approval.  After  this  I  took 
another  long  nap. 

The  next  morning  the  Dr.  was  more  angry  than  ever 
when  I  related  my  experience.  He  told  me  to  go  right 
on  back  that  day  to  go  to  some  store  and  buy  something 
and  bring  it  back  to  him,  so  that  he  would  know  that  I 
had  gone.  I  got  out  that  day  and  went  down  to  where 
those  soldiers  were  on  guard,  at  the  entrance.  They 
fixed  me  a  good  comfortable  seat  and  I  remained  with 
them  for  some  time.  They  did  not  fail  to  curse  the 
Doctor.  One  of  them  said :  "I  would  not  go  where 
he  told  me  to."  He  offered  to  go  and  get  me  something 
to  carry  back  to  that  *'cussed  Doctor."  This  he  did.  I 
got  back  to  my  room  without  help  that  day,  by  crawl- 
ing up  the  steps  and  resting  repeatedly.  I  got  back  to 
bed  and  took  another  long  nap.  The  next  day  the  Doc- 
tor seemed  angrier  than  ever  because  I  had  not  gone 
out  and  made  the  purchase  myself;  and  he  dared  me 

60 


not  to  go  that  day.  I  had  been  treated  so  badly  from 
time  to  time  that  I  had  lost  all  the  energy  and  courage 
that  I  had  ever  had.  The  Doctor  fed  me  so  long  on 
Jayne's  Expectorant,  that  I  cannot  bear  the  smell  of  it 
yet.  He  would  dose  me  out  things  to  take  and  leave 
directions  for  taking  it.  He  would  say,  ''This  is  the 
very  thing  for  you,  you  are  coming  right  along,  and  I 
will  just  continue  the  treatment."  All  of  this  went  in- 
to the  spittoon,  for  just  as  soon  as  he  would  leave  I 
would  throw  it  there.  Some  mornings  my  spittoon 
would  be  full  and  run  out  into  the  floor,  and  for  that  I 
would  get  a  big  cursing.  My  best  friend,  the  Sister 
who  had  been  waiting  on  me,  almost  deserted  me  when 
I  began  to  get  better.  I  did  not  get  to  see  her  often, 
in  fact,  I  never  did  get  a  chance  to  thank  her  for  her 
kind  treatment  to  me  while  I  was  so  sick. 

The  next  morning  I  went  out  again  and  the  same 
soldier  wanted  to  go  out  and  make  the  purchase  for 
me  again.  I  told  him  that  I  was  afraid  to  not  make 
the  trip  myself.  He  went  with  me  and  I  made  the 
purchase,  came  back  and  stayed  some  time  with  the 
guards  that  day.  The  next  day  the  Doctor  seemed  to 
be  in  a  better  humor  than  usual.  He  told  me  that  I 
should  go  out  every  day  and  stay  all  day  or  as  long  as 
possible,  this  I  promised  to  do.  I  met  up  with  a  soldier 
whom  I  knew  and  he  told  me  he  was  boarding  with  an 
old  Irish  woman  and  he  wanted  me  to  go  and  take  din- 
ner with  him,  as  it  was  only  a  few  blocks  away.  He 
said  that  he  would  help  me  along  and  that  we  would 
rest  when  I  felt  like  it.  I  consented  to  go  with  him 
and  we  went  slowly  and  rested  occasionally.  Finally 
we  got  there  and  the  old  woman  ran  and  met  me  and 
said,  ''Lawsy  me,  you  do  look  so  weak  and  bad."  She 
led  me  into  a  well  furnished  room  and  put  me  on  a 
good  bed  to  rest.  She  said  when  she  got  dinner  ready 
she  would  call  me.  When  I  went  to  dinner  she  had 
Irish  potatoes  well  cooked  and  lots  of  other  good 
things  to  eat.     Everything  looked  so  good  and  I  en- 

61 


joyed  my  dinner  so  much.     After  dinner  I  went  back 
to  bed  and  felt  better  than  I  had  for  many  a  day. 

As  soon  as  I  got  able  to  be  up  all  day  I  was  put  in 
a  room  to  look  after  a  sick  man  during  the  day  and' 
went  back  to  my  room  for  the  night.  The  young  man 
that  I  was  first  put  to  watch  over  was  from  our  Co. 
His  name  was  Cheek  and  he  was  suffering  from  a  re- 
lapse of  the  measles.  He  was  unconscious  and  per- 
fectly wild.  He  would  get  up  out  of  the  bed  and  try 
to  jump  out  of  the  window.  As  he  was  stouter  than  I 
he  almost  succeeded  in  jumping  out  at  one  time  in 
spite  of  all  that  I  could  do.  When  I  got  him  back  to 
bed  I  was  almost  exhausted.  Soon  one  of  the  stewards 
came  in  and  I  told  him  of  my  trouble.  As  he  was  much 
stronger  than  I  was  I  just  slipped  out  of  the  room  and 
told  him  to  take  charge  of  him,  that  I  was  not  coming 
back  there  under  any  circumstances.  Some  days  after 
that  I  ventured  to  his  room  and  looked  in  at  him.  He 
was  almost  gone,  died  in  just  a  little  while.  A  lot  of 
soldiers  from  our  Co.  died  in  that  hospital,  among  them 
were  Clinton  Little,  Jim  Little,  Green  West,  Jack  Har- 
bin, and  many  others  that  I  cannot  now  recall. 

About  this  time  I  heard  that  we  had  orders  to  leave 
Memphis.  I  sent  word  to  the  Captain  to  come  right  in 
as  I  certainly  wanted  to  see  him.  Pretty  soon  he  came 
and  told  me  that  they  had  moving  orders  and  that  they 
would  leave  there  on  a  boat.  I  told  him  that  it  would 
mean  death  to  me  to  be  left  there,  all  that  I  needed 
was  to  get  back  into  a  saddle  where  I  could  get  plenty 
of  exercise  and  fresh  air,  otherwise  I  would  die.  He 
laughed  at  me  and  told  me  that  they  would  not  dis- 
charge me  from  the  hospital.  I  told  him  that  I  knew 
that  but  if  he  would  promise  me  his  assistance  I  would 
try  to  remedy  that  as  I  only  had  the  old  Doctor  to  con- 
tend with.  I  told  him  that  I  did  not  want  the  Doctor 
to  know  or  even  suspicion  such  a  thing.  He  promised 
me  faithfully  that  he  would  come  back  and  let  me 
know  as  soon  as  he  found  out  more.     The  old  Doctor 

62 


was  not  paying  as  much  attention  to  me  as  he  had 
been,  but  kept  me  supplied  with  passes  from  time  to 
time.  So  I  began  to  make  my  preparations  to  get 
away.  I  got  a  boy  to  go  around  with  me,  and  got  my 
blankets  and  effects  where  I  could  lay  my  hands  on 
them  when  I  needed  them.  The  Captain  came  one 
evening  and  told  me  that  they  would  load  on  the  ord- 
nance, and  the  whole  outfit  the  next  day,  and  that  if  I 
was  going  I  had  better  be  there  by  ten  o'clock.  I  got 
the  boy  to  carry  my  luggage  and  we  trudged  along  to 
the  river  bluif . 

Below  Front  Street  near  where  they  were  loading 
the  big  boat  which  was  to  carry  us,  I  had  the  boy  to 
make  me  a  pallet  on  the  ground,  near  the  boat.  I  then 
paid  him  and  told  him  to  go  back.  Soon  Capt.  Tram- 
mel came  along,  took  up  my  pallet  and  told  me  to  fol- 
low him.  He  went  on  the  boat  and  up  to  the  deck 
where  he  made  me  a  pallet  and  told  me  to  lie  down  and 
hold  my  position.  All  were  busy  loading  on  horses, 
wagons,  and  teams,  and  everything  that  the  regiment 
had.  I  got  orders  to  move  out  of  the  way,  by  various 
parties;  but  I  told  them  that  I  was  there  by  superior 
orders  and  was  not  going  to  move  so  they  let  me  alone. 
When  we  got  loaded,  the  old  steamboat,  "The  West- 
moreland", pulled  up  the  Mississippi  River.  We  all 
got  off  and  cooked  and  ate  at  Cairo,  Illinois.  When 
we  were  near  Paducah  we  had  orders  from  one  of  our 
divisions  to  get  off  and  help  fight  Gen.  Forrest  whom 
they  were  in  an  engagement  with  at  that  time.  Our 
Colonel  refused,  saying  that  his  men  and  horses  were 
not  in  shape  for  service  as  they  had  been  aboard  the 
vessel  and  needed  rest  and  refreshment  instead  of  go- 
ing in  to  battle.  Too,  he  said  that  he  was  on  a  forced 
march  by  Gen.  Grant  to  reenforce  Gen.  Sherman's  army 
at  Chattanooga,  Tennessee.  However  the  commander 
of  the  post  turned  his  cannon  on  us  and  ordered  us  to 
Cast  Anchor,  which  we  did.  Our  Colonel  telegraph- 
ed Gen.  Grant  and  we  waited  there  a  week  to  hear 

63 


from  headquarters.  When  the  order  came  from  Gen. 
Grant  we  were  released  and  we  moved  on  up  the  Cum- 
berland River. 

About  this  time  small-pox  broke  out  among  us  on 
the  boat.  We  had  to  unload  them  as  fast  as  they  took 
it.  Vinse  Roden  and  Wash  Farehouse,  Marion  County- 
boys,  were  two  that  I  knew  who  broke  out  with  it. 
After  that  at  an  average  of  two  to  five  daily  were 
stricken  with  disease.  We  had  possession  of  the  river 
and  had  guards  posted  at  every  landing,  and  they  were 
left  with  our  soldiers  to  care  for  them.  About  this 
time  I  took  the  mumps.  The  banks  and  the  drifts  of 
the  river  were  filled  with  the  dead  carcasses  of  horses, 
and  we  had  to  drink  this  water.  The  boys  said  they 
had  to  strain  it  to  get  the  maggots  out  of  it.  When  we 
landed  at  Nashville  they  sent  me  in  an  ambulance  to 
the  field  hospital,  instead  of  the  camp,  here  I  remained 
quite  a  while.  While  there  I  had  an  attack  of  rheuma- 
tism and  was  not  able  to  turn  over  for  some  time.  I 
suffered  terribly  with  it.  It  was  not  so  very  long  until 
I  got  to  where  I  could  walk  on  crutches  and  in  a  little 
while  after  that  I  could  walk  with  out  them.  Soon  I 
began  to  call  on  the  Doctor  to  send  me  to  the  front  as 
I  felt  as  though  I  would  get  well  if  I  could  get  in  to  the 
saddle  again.  Finally,  he  said  that  I  might  go  but 
that  he  would  wash  his  hands  of  my  blood  as  I 
would  never  see  the  front.  There  was  a  detachment 
arranging  to  go  and  I  fell  in  with  them.  I  got  to  the 
soldiers  home  and  stayed  there  waiting  for  my  trans- 
portation until  I  gave  way  and  could  not  go.  The 
Doctor  in  charge  w^anted  to  send  me  back  to  the  field 
hospital  but  I  had  had  enough  of  that  and  refused  to 
be  sent.  He  then  told  me  that  he  had  an  exchange 
camp  about  two  miles  up  the  river  and  I  could  go  to 
that  if  I  could  get  there.  I  told  him  that  I  would  try.  I 
got  a  boy  to  carry  my  luggage  and  we  started  for  the 
camp.  By  my  lying  down  and  resting  occasionally, 
we  finally  got  there. 

64 


We  had  pretty  good  quarters  out  there  on  the  bank 
of  the  river.  The  next  morning  the  Lieutenant  had  me 
go  see  the  Doctor.  After  an  examination  he  sent  me 
to  a  small  tent  with  a  large  fireplace  in  it.  This  tent 
was  occupied  by  two  Irishmen,  one  of  them  was  named 
Hugh  McGraw,  and  the  other  one  was  Dominick  Mor- 
ley.  They  both  were  kind  and  good  to  me.  Domin- 
ick was  a  fat,  jovial  kind  of  a  fellow.  Hugh  was  a 
thin,  tall,  bony  fellow  and  I  never  did  see  him  smile, 
but  he  was  very  good  natured.  They  both  could  speak 
some  English.  They  did  their  own  cooking.  The 
Doctor  told  me  he  would  come  and  see  me  when  he  got 
through.  When  he  came  he  brought  a  bandage  for  me 
to  wear,  and  told  me  to  lie  on  my  back  and  not  get  up 
nor  turn  over  until  he  came  back  the  next  morning.  He 
told  the  two  Irishmen  to  leave  my  food  and  canteen 
where  I  could  reach  them  without  getting  up.  This 
they  did.  When  the  Doctor  came  back  he  still  had  me 
stay  on  my  back,  in  fact  I  remained  in  that  position  the 
most  of  the  time  for  several  days.  The  result  was  I 
grew  stronger  and  finally  got  to  where  I  could  walk 
again.  I  left  the  Irishmen's  tent  and  went  to  the  bar- 
racks. 

A  Canadian  and  I  became  attached  to  each  other 
and  ran  around  inside  of  our  limits  together.  There 
were  a  lot  of  fine  Jersey  cattle  sunning  on  the  banks  of 
the  river  and  I  made  the  remark  that  I  would  like  to 
have  some  milk  from  those  cows.  He  told  me  to  hand 
him  my  canteen  which  I  did.  I  picked  up  a  stick  and 
had  the  cow  stand  in  the  edge  of  some  briars  and  he 
soon  had  my  canteen  as  well  as  his  filled  with  milk. 
After  that  we  got  milk  right  often  that  way.  He  said 
that  he  and  his  sister.  Poll,  milked  fourteen  cows  when 
he  was  at  home. 

Many  incidents  happened  while  I  was  in  that  ex- 
change camp.  Some  time  there  were  thousands  of 
soldiers  there  and  some  times  not  so  many.  I  became 
very  anxious  to  go  to  the  front  as  soon  as  I  began  to 

65 


pick  up.  I  finally  got  in  to  a  detachment  but  instead 
of  sending  us  to  Georgia  they  sent  us  to  Decatur,  Ala- 
bama. There  we  were  joined  by  a  hundred  or  more 
men  who  had  been  left  behind  for  some  reason  or 
other.  We  were  mounted  and  started  out  one  even- 
ing but  only  went  a  few  miles  and  camped  that  night. 
The  next  morning  I  was  able  to  get  on  my  horse.  The 
officer  in  charge  told  me  he  would  have  to  send  me 
back  to  Decatur  if  I  did  not  feel  able  to  go.  I  told  them 
I  thought  I  would  be  able  to  get  back,  so  they  carried 
my  horse  on  with  them  and  I  started  back  to  Decatur 
on  foot,  where  I  was  told  to  report  to  Lieut.  Lukins.  I 
took  my  own  time,  and  rested  along  as  I  felt  like  it.  I 
crossed  the  Tennessee  River  on  the  pontoon  bridge, 
which  our  soldiers  had  put  in  just  below  the  trestle, 
where  the  bridge  had  been  burned.  I  reported  to 
Lieut.  Lukins  and  he  told  me  to  put  up  a  tent  and  he 
would  make  a  requisition  for  rations  as  several  private 
soldeirs  had  reported  to  him  that  morning.  He  said 
that  I  might  put  the  tent  any  where  I  wished.  I 
had  the  tent  put  across  the  river.  Over  there,  there 
was  good  fishing  and  hunting  ground.  An  old  man 
v/hom  I  knew  in  the  hospital,  and  whom  I  had  seen  in 
the  Exchange  Camp,  sent  for  me  to  come  to  see  him. 
I  went  to  see  him  and  found  him  very  low.  He  told 
me  that  he  was  going  to  die.  He  had  some  money 
and  a  fine  mare  which  he  wanted  me  to  send  or  carry 
to  his  wife.  This  I  did.  He  lived  out  on  the  mountain 
near  Days  Gap.  I  took  charge  of  the  mare  and  rode 
her  while  I  stayed  there. 

The  boys  of  our  regiment  began  to  come  in  until  we 
had  about  seventy-five  men  there  in  camp.  Some  of 
the  families  refugeed  and  were  living  around  there. 
I  had  instructions  to  give  them  a  pass  good  for  twenty- 
four  hours,  and  to  renew  these,  until  we  were  called  to 
the  front.  We  certainly  had  a  fine  time  while  there. 
We  had  nothing  to  do  except  fish  and  hunt,  and  there 
was  plenty  of  fish  in  the  bayou,  and  plenty  of  rabbits 

66 


and  squirrels  in  the  woods.  The  boys  found  an  old 
one-horse  mill  on  a  farm  not  far  from  camp.  There 
were  a  lot  of  old  calvary  horses  running  out  on  the 
commons,  and  pens  of  corn  all  of  which  had  been  de- 
serted. The  boys  took  these  horses  and  ground  meal. 
We  had  all  of  the  corn  meal  we  wanted  and  the  boys 
would  grind  meal  and  take  it  across  the  river  and  sell 
it,  in  Decatur,  in  order  to  get  them  some  money.  So 
we  certainly  had  a  fine  old  time  while  there.  My 
strength  began  to  return  to  me  rapidly  and  I  soon  felt 
strong  and  able  to  do  anything. 

We  finally  got  orders  to  go  to  the  front,  and  we 
were  to  be  transported  on  freight     cars.     Our     boys 
were  then  stationed  at  Rome,  Georgia.     On  the  way 
from  Chattanooga  our  train  sidetracked  at  a  station 
called  Graysville,  and  switched  off  on  a  side  track  in 
to  the  woods.     One  of  our  boys  by  the  name  of  Ford, 
from  Marion  County,  was  very  sick  and  weak  with 
diarrhea.     He  had  to  get  off  while  up  there  and  two 
of  us  helped  him  off  and  before  we  could  get  bacfk  on 
our  train  it  pulled  out.     The  other  fellow  ran  after 
the  train  saying  he  was  not  going  to  be  left.     I  insisted 
on  staying  and  helping  the  sick  man  to     the     station, 
where  there  was  a  little  squad  of  soldiers  at  a  wood 
yard.     Ford  was  not  able  to  walk  without  help  so  he 
put  him  arms  around  my  neck  and  I  helped  him  along 
until  we  got  to  where  the  soldiers  were.     I  left  him 
with  them  and  they  said  they  would  care  for  him.     As 
my  train  had  gone  and  there  was  a  wood  train  on  the 
side  track  ready  to  pull  out,  I    got    on    it.     At    the 
next  station  we  caught  up  with  our  train  and  I  got  off 
of  the  wood  train  and  ran  to  get  on  the  other  one,  but 
they  pulled  out  before  I  caught  up  with  them.     Then 
my  chance  was  to  get  back  on  the  wood  train.     About 
this  time  there  was  an  officers'  train,  with  one  car,  came 
by.     They  slowed  down  and  beckoned  me  to  get  on. 
They  were  all  commissioned  officers.     I  told  them  of 
my  troubles  and  why  I  was  left.     They  told  me  to  sit 

67 


down  and  be  contented  as  they  would  overtake  my 
train.  I  had  left  my  effects,  all  that  I  had  hid  in  a. 
freight  car  and  I  knew  it  would  be  lost  if  we  did  not 
catch  them  at  Kingston,  as  we  changed  there  to  go  to 
Rome.  I  had  the  officers  there  to  telegraph  back  for 
them  to  send  the  sick  man  on,  and  got  my  baggage 
allright. 

We  went  on  the  first  train  to  Rome  and  there  was 
a  lot  of  rejoicing  over  getting  back  to  our  Company 
once  more.  I  was  then  well  and  hearty  and  there  was 
nothing  to  do  but  mount  a  horse  and  go  in  for  duty.i 
Our  regiment  was  stationed  there  for  the  purpose  of 
foraging  for  the  sick  and  the  wounded.  We  were  to 
get  all  of  those  who  were  badly  wounded,  and  those 
who  were  too  sick  to  move  back  North.  Those  who 
were  slightly  wounded  or  who  would  be  ready  for  ser- 
vice soon  were  sent  to  Rome.  We  were  continually 
foraging  for  beef  cattle  and  other  supplies  for  them 
to  subsist  on.  We  were  having  a  tough  time  as  we 
were  being  bushwhacked  all  of  the  time  and  were  in 
great  danger  the  most  of  the  time.  However,  I  cer- 
tainly enjoyed  the  change  of  hospital  to  field.  Many 
of  my  comrades  I  had  not  seen  since  my  severe  illness 
and  they  thought  I  was  dead.  There  I  got  news  from 
home  and  they  were  still  living.  Many  of  my  friends 
were  sending  me  word  to  come  back  and  help  them, 
and  if  I  only  would  they  would  be  ready  and  waiting 
to  come  back  with  me.  We  were  continually  on  the 
scout,  and  sometimes  we  would  be  out  for  several  days 
before  we  would  be  able  to  bunch  up  a  drove  of  cattle. 

One  time  we  went  to  Cedar  Town,  Georgia,  and  the 
officers  in  charge  who  had  left  a  garrison  to  take 
charge  of  the  town,  sent  out  a  detachment  on  each 
road  to  search  for  cattle.  I  got  the  Major  to  send  me 
out  on  the  Van  Wert  Road,  as  I  had  an  Uncle  who  lived 
out  on  that  road.  We  went  on  a  short  distance  and 
came  to  a  road  which  turned  to  the  right.  We  took 
this  road  and  soon  came  to  a  large  house  with  several 

68 


horses  hitched  outside.  We  charged  the  place  but  the 
riders  made  their  escape,  but  left  their  horses.  We  dis- 
mounted and  searched  the  house  for  arms  and  ammu- 
nition. We  found  a  large  table  well  loaded  with 
plenty  of  good  things  to  eat.  We  had  no  time  to  stop 
and  eat  but  each  of  us  got  a  lunch.  I  filled  my  haver- 
sack with  turkey  and  other  good  things  to  eat.  We 
then  went  on  leading  our  captured  horses.  In  a  short 
distance  we  struck  the  long  leaf  pines  and  it  looked 
rather  discouraging  as  far  as  the  cattle  were  concerned. 
We  then  turned  in  the  direction  of  the  left  hand  road 
which  we  had  just  left.  Not  far  from  town  we  struck 
some  old  fields  and  found  a  nice  bunch  of  cattle.  We 
drove  them  on  in  the  direction  in  which  we  were  going 
and  found  a  lot  more.  We  then  had  about  all  we  could 
handle,  so  we  turned  toward  town. 

In  riding  through  the  bushes  I  found  a  man  on  foot. 
He  told  me  he  was  a  citizen  of  this  country  and  not  a 
soldier.  I  ordered  him  to  get  up  into  the  road  where 
the  horses  were  being  led  as  he  was  going  on  with  us, 
and  for  him  to  get  on  one  of  those  horses,  his  own  if  he 
preferred.  This  he  did.  I  rode  on  with  him  and  asked 
him  if  he  knew  Daniel  Roberts  who  lived  some  where 
near  that  place.  I  told  him  that  this  man  was  my 
mother's  brother.  He  told  me  that  Roberts  was  his 
own  uncle.  The  next  house  was  Uncle  Daniel's.  I 
called  at  the  gate.  Uncle  Daniel  had  gone  South  but 
a  cousin,  his  oldest  daughter  was  there.  I  remem- 
bered having  seen  her  and  she  remembered  me.  We 
had  their  cattle  in  the  bunch  and  she  was  very  much 
worried  about  them.  I  told  her  to  get  on  my  horse 
behind  me  and  we  would  stop  at  the  first  suitable  place 
and  take  their  cattle  out  of  the  bunch.  The  first  fence 
we  came  to  I  had  the  drove  stopped  and  had  her  cattle 
turned  through  the  fence.  I  left  her  there  with  her 
cattle  but  before  we  got  to  town  they  broke  through 
the  fence  and  caught  up  with  us.  When  we  got  to 
town  I  told  the  major  of  our  success,  and  that  I  had  got 

69 


my  uncle's  cattle  and  I  would  like  to  have  them  re-i 
turned.  He  approved  of  this  but  as  we  had  no  way  of 
distinguishing  them  from  the  others  we  were  com- 
pelled to  let  them  go  on,  contrary  to  my  wishes.  After 
the  war  was  over  one  of  my  uncles,  a  brother  of  my 
mother,  wrote  me  from  Arkansas  where  he  then  lived, 
censuring  me  for  the  crime  of  taking  my  uncle's  cattle. 
We  passed  several  insulting  letters  in  regard  to  this 
matter.  He  was  a  rank  secessionist  and  his  boys  were 
killed  in  the  Rebel  Army. 

While  we  went  off  on  our  scouting  expedition  after 
cattle  the  reserve  we  left  in  town  broke  in  a  tobacco 
ware  house  and  had  tobacco  boxes  open  and  scattered 
all  over  the  streets.  They  had  also  broken  into  one 
of  the  lodges  and  had  taken  out  the  uniforms  and  had 
them  on  wearing  them.  All  who  could  got  sacks  and 
filled  them  with  tobacco  and  carried  it  with  them  to 
chew  on.  Some  two  or  three  of  us  went  into  a  house 
where  there  were  three  women.  One  was  an  old 
woman  and  theother  two  were  v/ives  of  Reb  Soldiers. 
They  were  badly  frightened  at  us  when  we  went  in, 
but  we  told  them  we  had  just  come  in  to  make  some' 
coffee  and  that  we  were  not  going  to  harm  them  in  any 
way.  So  the  old  woman  made  the  coffee  for  us  and 
the  others  went  on  cooking.  The  old  lady  was  very 
much  delighted  with  the  coffee.  We  all  sat  down 
together  and  had  a  fine  meal  which  we  all  seemed  to 
enjoy.  The  women  told  us  they  wished  their  husbands 
were  there  as  they  would  be  glad  that  they  were  with 
us  as  they  were  starving  and  almost  going  naked. 
They  said  that  from  what  they  had  heard  of  us  they 
expected  to  be  killed  when  we  walked  in.  We  gave 
the  old  woman  what  coffee  we  had  left  and  they  all 
shook  hands  with  us  when  we  left. 

When  the  scouts  all  got  in  we  left  for  camp  with 
our  drove  of  cattle.  I  took  charge  of  my  cousin  and  told 
him  to  say  nothing  to  any  one.  As  we  drove  the  cattle 
along  we  had  a  long  talk.     He  told  me  that  he  enlisted 

70 


in  the  first  Georgia  calvary  regiment  that  went  out. 
He  said  that  he  had  been  through  it  all  and  knew  now 
that  they  were  whipped,  and  that  he  was  now  trying 
to  save  his  life.  That  he  had  a  wife  and  baby  and  that 
he  had  decided  to  fight  no  more,  and  that  he  was  going 
on  with  us  and  was  going  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance. 
Pretty  soon  the  guard  found  that  I  had  a  prisoner  and 
he  took  him  away  from  me,  and  put  him  with  the  other 
prisoners.  When  we  went  in  camp  that  night  I  hunted 
him  up  and  we  took  supper  together,  eating  the  turkey 
that  I  put  in  my  haversack  that  had  been  prepared  for 
him  and  his  own  comrades  for  dinner  that  day. 

The  next  morning  I  got  up  early  and  climbed  the 
fence  where  the  guards  were,  to  get  some  corn  for  my 
horse.  One  of  the  guards  was  lying  in  the  corner  of 
the  fence  with  my  cousin  and  both  of  them  were  sound 
asleep.  I  climbed  over  and  got  my  corn  but  I  did  not 
molest  either  of  them.  The  next  day  at  noon  I,  being 
in  charge  of  the  cattle,  penned  them  and  placed  a 
guard  to  watch  over  them.  Then  each  of  us  started 
on  his  own  way  to  find  some  food.  I  saw  a  large  house 
in  the  distance  and  I  galloped  up  that  way.  I  saw 
some  ''Johnnies"  run  toward  their  ponies,  get  on  them, 
and  start  off.  I  put  the  spurs  to  my  mare  and  soon 
overtook  them,  shooting  at  them  all  of  the  time.  They 
soon  threw  up  their  hands  and  surrendered  and  I  took 
them  both  in.  So  I  got  but  little  dinner  that  day.  We 
got  back  to  camp  with  out  any  further  trouble  that  I 
now  remember  of. 

We  continued  in  this  line  of  duty  until  I  agreed  to 
go  on  a  scouting  trip  to  Alabama,  for  recruits.  I 
always  have  regretted  doing  this,  ever  since  we  left 
on  the  train  for  Decatur,  on  detached  service.  There 
we  met  up  with  a  noted  scout.  Bill  Luny,  who  escorted 
us  to  Days  Gap,  on  top  of  the  mountain.  We  had  about 
forty  miles,  or  more  to  go  to  get  through  Winston  Coun- 
ty to  Marion  County.  We  were  very  tired  and  when 
we  reached  a  branch  at  the  foot  of  a  hill  we  stopped  to 

71 


rest.  Just  before  that  we  had  met  a  man,  on  horse- 
back, in  the  road  whom  Luny  knew.  Luny  drew  his 
pistol  and  shot  him  and  left  him  lying  there  in  the 
road  where  he  had  fallen  dead  when  shot.  While  we 
were  at  this  branch  resting  a  bit  and  consulting,  a  vol- 
ley was  shot  in  to  our  party  and  two  of  the  boys  were 
killed.  One  of  them  was  a  son  of  widow  Carter,  and 
the  other  was  Phillip  Sutton.  I  knew  both  of  them. 
This  created  quite  a  bit  of  excitement,  and  about  all 
of  the  crowd  ran  off,  Bill  Luny  with  the  rest.  We  had 
two  ponies  with  us,  and  had  our  coats  and  other  things 
piled  up  on  these  ponies,  but  we  ran  off  and  left  what 
we  had  on  the  ponies.  I  did  not  know  which  way  to 
go.  but  went  up  the  hill  and  found  Bill  Elkins  shooting 
at  them  with  a  sixteen  shot  rifle.  He  was  holding 
them  in  check  very  well.  I  stopped  and  shot  back  at 
them  twice,  with  my  pistol,  which  was  all  that  I  had. 
I  then  ran  again  thinking  that  it  might  be  best  to  save 
my  ammunition  for  closer  quarters.  I  ran  on  until  I 
was  about  given  out  and  noticed  they  were  pursuing 
me,  on  horses.  I  was  in  a  long  flat  hollow  where  I  had 
no  protection,  so  I  just  got  behind  a  tree  and  shot  at 
them  and  they  left  off  pursuing  me.  At  that  time  I 
was  run  down  and  was  not  able  to  run  further,  and 
;when  I  shot  at  them  they  did  not  care  to  take  the 
chances  of  coming  further.  I  rested  there  a  while  and 
then  proceeded  down  the  hollow  until  I  came  to  a  sort 
of  a  bluff.  There  was  a  vacant  space  in  the  rocks  and 
some  of  our  party  had  crowded  in  here  for  a  place  of 
safety.  I  got  them  to  come  out  and  found  there  were 
two  white  men  and  a  negro.  The  negro  had  saved 
his  food  and  we  all  ate  some  of  it  and  went  on  for  some 
distance  to  where  we  met  up  with  some  of  our  party. 
All  we  could  find  to  eat  was  a  few  roasting  ears. 

I  got  sick  and  it  was  with  much  difficulty  that  I 
got  to  old  Sammy  Spain's.  The  old  lady  Spain  took 
me  to  a  bluff,  near  their  home  and  made  me  a  pallet 
under  a  large  rock.     This  made  me  a  comfortable  hid- 

72 


ing  place,  and  she  made  it  more  so  by  giving  me  tea, 
and  medicine  and  doctoring  me  up.  She  kept  me 
there  until  I  was  able  to  go  to  my  family,  although  I 
Was  not  able  to  travel  for  some  time,  as  I  had  a  bad 
spell.  Some  of  my  friends  assisted  me  home  but  I  had 
no  place  to  go  when  I  got  there.  They  carried  me  to 
an  old  house,  where  no  one  lived,  and  which  had  no 
road  to  it,  this  was  two  or  three  miles  from  my  home. 
My  wife  waited  on  me  as  well  as  she  could,  and  I  soon 
began  to  pick  up  and  get  strong  again.  The  chances 
were  bad  to  get  back  and  I  had  to  wait  for  an  oppor- 
tunity, and  it  was  some  time  after  I  got  able  to  travel 
before  I  got  the  opportunity.  I  had  many  adventures 
while  here  and  escaped  being  captured  or  killed  many 
times.  Finally  I  got  a  Rebel  soldier's  horse,  a  good 
one  too,  and  went  through  on  him.  There  were  several 
of  us  in  the  bunch. 

When  I  got  to  Decatur  I  learned  that  our  regiment 
had  left  Rome  and  had  gone  on  the  famous  march  with 
Gen.  Sherman,  and  there  was  no  chance  to  get  to  them. 
The  portion  of  the  regiment  that  was  left  was  stationed 
at  Huntsville,  Alabama,  where  we  were  sent  a  short 
time  afterwards.  The  surrender  of  Lee  to  Grant  was 
made  on  April  9,  1865  and  we  waited  for  the  arrival 
of  our  command;  as  they  rode  through  from  North 
Carolina,  they  were  some  time  getting  there.  There 
was  great  rejoicing,  hand-shaking,  and  shouting  when 
they  did  come  in.  Each  one  had  a  tale  to  tell,  and  all 
were  anxious  to  hear  the  details.  They  had  certainly 
had  a  tough  time  and  lots  of  fighting  to  do. 

About  that  time  Vandorn's  army  marched  South 
from  Nashville  and  passed  through  Winston  County 
and  Marion  County,  destroying,  practically,  everything 
that  had  been  left  to  subsist  on.  This  caused  great 
numbers  to  have  to  refugee.  They  had  to  go  through 
the  lines  in  order  to  get  something  to  eat,  my  family 
not  excepted.  As  soon  as  I  heard  that  they  were 
coming  I  got  a  pass  and  went  to  Decatur  to  meet  them. 

73 


When  they  came  we  had  to  camp  in  an  old  house  with 
a  lot  of  other  refugees.  The  river  was  high  and  the 
ponds  and  lagoons  were  full  of  water  on  the  north  side 
of  the  river  so  we  had  to  wait  for  a  steamboat  to  carry 
us  up  the  river  to  a  landing  place.  The  commander 
gave  orders  to  occupy  any  house  that  I  could  find  va- 
cant. The  boat  finally  came.  My  wife  had  brought  a 
pair  of  oxen  to  move  with  and  while  we  were  waiting 
for  the  boat  I  bought  another  pair,  from  a  refugee  who 
who  was  going  North.  We  loaded  these  on  the  boat, 
but  they  ordered  us  to  put  them  on  a  barge,  which  we 
did.  Soon  after  we  pulled  out  in  to  the  river  the  barge 
began  to  sink.  My  cattle  still  had  their  yoke  on  so  I 
jumped  out  into  the  river  and  after  some  difficulty 
succeeded  in  getting  them  unyoked.  I  got  them  ashore 
again,  then  the  boatman  let  us  load  them  on  the  boat 
again.  When  we  got  above  the  mouth  of  the  creek 
they  unloaded  us  on  the  bank. 

When  I  left  home  I  had  two  large  severe  dogs. 
One  of  them  left  when  I  did  but  the  other  one,  a  large 
Newfoundland,  remained  with  the  family  and  looked 
after  the  children.  His  name  was  Sheriff  and  he  came 
with  the  family  to  me.  The  only  thing  he  ever  saw 
that  he  was  afraid  of  was  a  steamboat.  The  children 
would  ride  him  and  manage  him  as  they  pleased. 
When  the  steamboat  landed  we  were  all  ready  to  go 
aboard.  Sheriff  just  raved  and  barked  at  the  boat 
while  it  was  landing.  He  caught  the  children  by  their 
clothing  and  pulled  at  them  to  keep  them  from  going 
on  the  boat,  but  when  they  went  on  the  boat,  Sheriff 
did  too. 

A  man  by  the  name  of  Bill  Davidson,  was  at  De- 
catur when  I  got  there.  He  was  from  Walker  County. 
He  had  no  team  and  I  did  not  know  how  he  got  there 
as  he  had  a  wife,  her  sister,  and  his  two  orphan  brothers 
with  him.  As  he  wanted  to  go  across  the  river  with  us 
I  let  him  have  one  of  my  teams.  A  negro,  on  the  shore, 
wanted  to  sell  me  a  mule  and  offered  to  take  twenty 

74 


dollars  for  it.  I  told  him  if  he  would  get  me  an  old 
saddle  of  some  kind,  and  bring  the  mule  and  tie  him 
to  a  post  that  I  would  take  him.  The  old  negro  did  as 
I  directed  and  I  gave  him  the  twenty  dollars.  When 
we  were  landed  they  had  taken  our  wagons  apart  and 
we  had  a  time  separating  them  and  putting  them  to- 
gether again.  We  had  not  gone  far  when  we  came  to 
some  back  water  and  had  to  stop  again.  I  left  them 
and  went  in  search  of  a  suitable  place  to  locate.  I 
went  across  the  water  on  my  old  mule  and  a  few  miles 
further  on  I  found  a  large  negro  quarter.  Here  I 
found  a  very  good  house,  vacant.  I  went  back  and 
moved  my  family  in  to  the  house.  Davidson  and  his 
family  moved  in  to  another  one  near  me. 

There  was  a  man  there  by  the  name  of  Free  who 
had  a  contract  to  haul  wood.  I  got  Davidson  and  his 
brother  to  take  my  team  and  go  and  cut  and  haul  wood. 
We  got  a  good  price  for  our  wood  so  the  teams  made 
all  of  us  a  good  living.  There  were  large  wheat  crops 
all  around  us  and  as  there  were  no  fences  our  cattle 
got  all  of  the  wheat  they  could  eat  so  our  feed  bill  did 
not  cost  us  anything.  The  Davidson  boys  became 
dissatisfied  with  living  with  their  brother  and  wanted 
to  come  and  live  with  me,  as  they  said  their  brother 
was  not  good  to  them.  I  talked  the  matter  over  with 
Davidson  and  he  said  he  was  not  able  to  feed  and  clothe 
them  and  would  be  glad  if  I  would  take  them.  This 
I  did.  I  now  had  to  go  to  the  army  as  I  had  not  been 
mustered  out  and  my  time  belonged  to  Uncle  Sam.  I 
traded  my  old  mule  for  a  young  one  and  while  I  was 
away  my  wife  sold  it  for  seventy  dollars  in  gold.  I 
traded  for  another  mule  and  put  one  of  the  boys  (Bob) 
to  planting  a  crop  of  corn.  Work  began  to  get  dull  at 
the  wood  yard,  so  Davidson  went  up  to  Bell  Font  and 
hauled  wood  for  eight  dollars  a  cord.  This  beat  me 
out  of  my  part  and  Bill  Davidson  only  got  his  board 
for  his  work. 

75 


CHAPTER  VII 

Soon  I  was  called  to  Nashville,  Tenn.  to  be  mustered 
out  of  the  service.  As  soon  as  I  got  back  I  went  home  to 
see  what  the  prospect  was  to  go  back  there  and  live.  I 
found  things  in  a  very  bad  condition.  There  was 
plenty  of  corn  to  be  had  for  fifty  cents  a  bushel  but  it 
had  to  be  hauled  from  the  prairies  of  Mississippi.  I 
had  saved  all  of  my  wages  while  I  was  in  the  army,  and 
the  Government  owed  me  a  lot.  I  had  saved  it  all  for 
my  family  in  case  I  did  not  get  back.  In  all  I  had  seven 
hundred  dollars,  and  as  my  wife  had  a  little  money  too 
I  thought  we  would  move  back  home.  When  I  got 
back  to  Decatur,  the  owners  of  the  place  we  were  liv- 
ing on  had  made  application  to  headquarters  and  got 
an  order  to  have  all  families  moved.  They  hauled  all 
out  together  and  left  us  camped  on  the  outskirts  of 
Decatur.  We  were  all  reported  as  being  a  rough  set 
of  people  that  had  got  in  possession  with  out  authority. 
I  just  went  right  to  Athens  to  the  commander  in  charge 
and  took  out  my  discharge  and  showed  it  to  them.  He 
called  the  owner  in  his  office  and  told  him  that  he 
recognized  my  right  to  remain  on  the  premises  unless 
he  would  pay  me  for  my  crop.  I  told  him  that  I  did 
not  want  to  come  back  to  gather  the  crop  as  I  would 
rather  go  to  my  own  place  and  if  he  was  disposed  to 
give  me  a  hundred  dollars  for  it  he  could  have  it,  but 
if  not  I  would  move  back  on  the  place.  He  finally 
agreed  and  paid  me  the  hundred  dollars  in  gold. 

I  went  back  and  went  to  a  sale,  v/here  the  Govern- 
ment was  auctioning  off  a  lot  of  condemned  horses  and 
mules.  I  bid  in  some  stock  very  cheap.  I  then  bought 
in  two  old  cows  as  I  learned  there  were  none  where  we 
were  going.  I  got  on  over  as  for  as  Moulton  and  a  man 
swore  to  the  oxen  my  wife  had  bought  to  move  with. 
They  claimed  that  Van  Dorn's  men  had  driven  them 
off.  So  he  took  them  away  from  me.  Another  party 
had  been  in  our  neighborhoond  and  heard  of  a  mule 
that  had  been  taken  from  me  and  they  went  and  got  it. 

76 


They  said  they  were  going  to  bring  it  to  me.  They 
came  to  old  man  George  Almon's  with  the  mule  and 
swapped  it  to  him  for  an  old  piece  of  a  mule  and  gave 
him  ten  dollars  difference.  The  two  of  them  had  rid- 
den the  mule  until  it  was  almost  given  out.  They 
brought  it  to  me  and  said  the  mule  had  given  out  and 
that  they  had  paid  ten  dollars  difference.  I  paid  them 
the  tendollars  they  said  they  had  paid  out.  On  the 
trip  out  there  the  mule  tried  to  run  in  Almon's  lot  with 
me.  He  told  me  had  traded  the  old  mule  to  a  man  a 
short  while  ago.  I  spent  the  night  with  Almon,  and 
found  out  that  those  boys  had  lied  to  me.  They  got 
ten  dollars  from  Almon  and  ten  dollars  from  me.  The 
mule  they  traded  Almon  was  worth  two  of  the  onel  got. 

About  the  time  the  men  took  my  oxen  from  me  a 
man  came  along  and  swore  to  the  mule  that  Almon  got 
from  the  boys  and  Almon  was  going  to  take  the  old 
mule  away  from  me.  I  went  back  to  Moulton  and 
talked  to  Henry  Speake,  a  young  lawyer  of  Moulton. 
He  advised  me  to  go  to  Marion  County  and  get  evi- 
dence that  the  mule  was  mine.  I  got  a  house  and 
moved  my  family  in  to  it  and  left  them  there  while  I 
went  to  Marion  County  to  get  affidavits  that  the  mule 
was  mine  and  had  been  taken  from  me.  When  I  got 
back  with  these,  Almon  had  to  release  the  old  mule 
and  we  moved  on. 

When  we  got  back  to  our  old  home  the  buildings 
were  all  run  down  and  the  fences  were  burned  down. 
The  land  had  grown  up  in  bushes  and  every  thing 
looked  bad.  I  took  courage  and  went  to  work  again. 
I  kept  a  wagon  on  the  road  whenever  needed,  hauling 
corn  to  live  on.  I  also  bought  me  some  hogs.  The 
roads  were  full  of  negroes  on  starvation  looking  for 
something  to  live  on.  I  took  a  lot  of  them  in  and  put 
them  to  work,  preparing  for  a  crop.  They  offered  to 
work  for  their  board  but  I  told  them  that  I  would 
pay  them  six  dollars  a  month  and  board  them.  I  did 
not  get  any  except  good  hands  and  they  sure  did  work. 

77 


I  got  all  of  land  cleaned  up,  the  fences  prepared,  and 
everything  in  good  shape  for  a  crop.  It  was  a  close 
pinch  t  oget  through  with  what  money  I  had,  to  meet 
the  crop  we  put  in.  We  had  nothing  to  eat  except 
bread,  corn  bread  at  that,  and  buttermilk  and  some 
times  not  enough  milk.  We  went  barefooted  and  made 
our  clothing  do.  Then  there  was  not  a  thing  to  be 
bought  in  that  whole  community.  We  all  lived  very 
much  alike.  My  bees,  cattle,  hogs,  and  all  were  gone. 
All  that  I  had  was  my  stumped  tail  dog  Sheriff,  a 
one  and  one  quarter  auger  that  had  been  loaned  out, 
and  a  bull  that  had  strayed  off  to  Buck  West's.  West 
had  taken  care  of  him  and  reported  him  to  me  when  I 
came  back. 

I  v/ill  now  go  back  and  tell  some  things  that  I  re- 
member. When  the  Reb  Cavalry  came  through  under 
the  command  of  Van  Dorn  they  cleaned  up  the  country. 
At  the  same  time  that  my  family  left,  old  man  Roberts' 
family  left  too.  The  only  way  they  had  to  go  was  on 
foot.  Mary,  the  girl  that  was  living  with  my  wife, 
went  with  her  mother.  They  were  shipped  to  Clarks- 
ville,  Tennessee,  and  put  in  refugee  camp.  There 
they  all  died  except  Mary  and  her  sister  just  younger 
than  Mary.  By  some  means  she  found  out  where  my 
wife  was  and  she  and  her  sister  came  to  us.  She  went 
back  with  me  when  I  went  back  to  our  old  place  and 
when  I  was  mustered  out  of  service  and  we  moved 
back,  Mary  went  with  us  and  lived  with  us  still.  We 
made  a  fine  crop  the  first  year  and  had  plenty  of  every 
thing  to  eat  that  could  be  grown. 

About  this  time  my  wife  was  taken  sick  and  died. 
That  was  the  worst  trouble  that  I  ever  had  in  my  life. 
It  seemed  that  I  had  got  to  the  end  of  my  row.  Four 
little  children  left  with  out  a  mother  and  one  of  them 
only  an  infant  a  few  days  old.  I  did  not  have  a  rela- 
tive nearer  than  three  hundred  miles.  I  could  see  no 
chance  for  me  and  wrote  my  mother,  the  dearest  friend 
I  ever  had.     She  wrote  me  to  come  at  once  and     she 

78 


would  do  everything  that  she  could  possibly  do.  That 
she  would  take  of  the  children  with  all  possible  care, 
and  that  it  would  be  the  greatest  pleasure  of  her  life 
to  do  so.  That  letter  was  a  great  relief  to  me  but  all 
that  I  'had  was  here.  I  had  no  money  and  she  was 
poor  as  her  husband  had  wasted  everything  that  she 
had,  before  he  died.  Besides  she  was  too  old  for  me 
to  impose  on  by  taking  my  crowd  of  helpless  children 
to,  so  I  did  not  try  to  go. 

Everything  went  on  smoothly  for  a  while,  the  meals 
came  regularly  and  everything  seemed  to  be  going  on 
all  right.  The  orphan  boys  seemed  to  be  en- 
joying themselves.  So  did  the  negroes.  I  noticed 
that  Mary  seemed  to  be  unhappy,  especially  at  times 
when  her  sister,  who  lived  a  few  miles  away,  would 
come  to  visit  her.  Her  sister  came  often  and  often 
Mary  would  not  come  to  the  table  for  her  meals  after 
that.  I  asked  Mary  frequently  what  the  trouble  was, 
but  I  could  not  get  her  to  tell  me  anyhing.  One  day  I 
told  her  she  just  had  to  tell  me  her  trouble  as  I  thought 
some  one  was  imposing  on  her.  She  told  me  that  all 
were  good  to  her  and  treated  her  kindly.  She  said 
she  had  been  told  that  she  would  be  talked  about  living 
there  with  only  men  folks  and  negroes,  and  that  her 
character  was  all  that  she  had.  She  said  that  my  wife 
was  the  best  friend  that  she  had  ever  had  on  earth  and 
that  she  had  promised  her  on  her  death  bed  that  she 
would  stay  there  and  take  care  of  the  children.  Under 
the  circumstances  she  did  not  know  what  to  do.  I 
told  her  to  do  as  she  thought  best,  that  she  felt  to  me 
as  one  of  the  family  and  that  I  would  treat  her  as  one 
of  the  children.  I  told  her  that  the  ones  who  were 
trying  to  get  her  away  from  me  were  not  my  friends 
nor  hers  and  that  they  wanted  her  for  a  slave.  I  said 
that  it  [would  seem  like  giving  up  one  of  the  family, 
but  for  her  to  do  as  she  pleased.  She  told  me  that  she 
would  stay  on  as  she  felt  it  a  duty  and  an  obligation. 
The  next  time  her  sister  came  she  had  a  talk  with  her 

79 


and  after  she  had  found  out  that  she  had  failed  in  her 
purpose,  she  broke  down.  I  told  her  if  she  could  not 
come  there  without  bothering  my  concerns  she  had  best 
get  out  from  there  and  stay  out.  She  left  and  that  was 
the  last  of  It. 

Everything  went  on  as  well  as  could  be  wished  for, 
except  the  little  baby  died.  It  died  one  night  when  no 
one  knew  it,  we  did  not  even  know  it  was  sick.  It  was 
sleeping  with  Mary  at  the  time.  Time  passed  and 
Mary  was  so  good  to  the  children  and  was  so  devoted 
to  them  and  they  were  to  her  and  she  was  looking  after 
everything  so  nicely  that  I  fell  in  love  with  her  and  we 
married.  My  mother  had  written  to  me  repeatedly 
and  always  advised  me  not  to  marry  any  one  on  any 
condition.  She  said  that  she  could  not  bear  the 
thought  of  those  little  children  having  a  step-mother. 
You  can  see  that  I  did  not  know  what  to  do.  I  had 
never  disobeyed  her,  but  I  thought  if  she  knew  Mary 
as  well  as  I  did  she  would  be  reconciled.  So  I  left 
home  one  morning  and  went  to  Pikeville  and  told 
Judge  Terrel  that  I  wanted  a  marriage  license.  I 
came  back  by  G.  M.  Haley's  and  told  him  that  I  wanted 
him  to  come  to  my  house  the  next  day  on  particular 
business.  He  came  the  next  morning  and  all  were  at 
work  except  Mary  and  the  children.  I  handed  him 
the  license  and  he  preformed  the  ceremony  that  made 
us  man  and  wife.  I  told  him  to  say  nothing  about  it 
and  it  was  a  long  time  before  my  mother  found  it  out. 
After  many  years  she  visited  us  and  became  ac- 
quainted v/ith  Mary.  She  then  said  to  me,  ''John,  you 
did  not  make  any  mistake  when  you  married  Mary." 

When  the  Civil  War  was  over  and  every  body  had 
made  a  crop  and  had  something  to  subsist  on,  and  even 
before  that,  society  was  very  much  like  it  was  during 
the  World  War.  It  looked  as  if  many  of  the  women 
had  gone  wild  about  the  few  soldiers  who  were  left. 
I  regret  that  I  got  off  into  wickedness  that  causes  me 
to  shudder  when  I  think  of  it.     I  feel  at  times  that  I 

80 


was  a  disgrace  to  society  and  contrary  to  my  early 
training.  I  had  passed  through  the  war  without  being 
tempted  with  evil  associates  and  had  no  respect  for 
that  class.  Then  to  think  that  I  would  then  fall  after 
being  spared  and  preserved  by  a  higher  power  to  come 
out  safe  and  sound  to  my  loved  ones  again  at  home.  It 
was  too  bad  to  even  think  of  if  one  could  help  it. 

However,  it  seemed  as  if  Providence  smiled  on  us. 
We  had  bountiful  crops  from  year  to  year,  good  mar- 
kets, and  high  prices  for  all  we  made.  My  responsi- 
bility increased  all  of  the  time,  the  children  were 
growing  up  uneducated,  the  family  was  increasing, 
our  clothing  was  short,  no  house  to  live  in  that  was 
even  comfortable,  and  no  furniture  nor  furnishings  to 
fix  things  so  as  to  be  comfortable  and  happy  at  home. 
All  of  these  things  were  needed  and  it  took  money  to 
buy  them.  So  I  started  out  anew  to  try  to  accomplish 
something.  As  soon  as  I  could  get  some  capital  to  oper- 
ate on  went  into  any  kind  of  work  that  I  could  get  a 
start  in  the  world.  Through  sheer  necessity  I  had  to 
work  my  little  girls  out  at  most  any  work  there  was  to 
do.  My  mares  brought  colts,  my  cows  brought  calves, 
my  sows  brought  pigs  and  my  ewes  brought  lambs. 
Pretty  soon  we  had  lots  of  stock. 

Just  after  the  war  the  mails  were  all  to  reestablish 
and  many  made  fortunes  carrying  the  United  States 
mail.  I  got  in  that  business  too  late  to  make  a  fortune, 
but  not  too  late  to  make  some  good  needed  money, 
v/hile  at  it  to  furnish  a  lot  of  unemployed  men  with 
work.  I  had  from  my  early  experience  learned  how 
to  do  all  sorts  of  work  on  the  farm,  as  well  as  other 
kinds  of  work.  I  learned  how  to  control  labor  when 
young.  I  could  grub,  split  rails,  cut  cord  wood,  burn 
charcoal,  work  in  copper  mines,  dig  wells  and  clean 
them  out.  This  last  work  I  did  a  great  deal  of  while 
waiting  for  other  employment  such  as  pulling  fodder, 
saving  hay,  etc.  I  had  learned  something  about  trad- 
ing in  horses  as  well  as  trading  in  general.     I     used 

81 


this  to  a  good  advantage  and  before  long  I  was  where 
I  could  clothe  and  feed  my  children  decently.  I  sent 
them  to  school,  a  fact  of  which  I  am  proud.  Up  to  this 
time  I  had  never  shunned  hard  labor  and  I  never  did. 

My  life  has  been  a  life  or  sorrows  and  troubles,  the 
older  I  get  the  worse  it  seems.  My  happiest  days 
were  when  I  was  young.  I  can  look  back  and  feel 
happy  at  the  thought  of  my  blessed,  little  innocent, 
lovely  children.  I  did  not  think  or  even  dream  of  the 
trouble  they  were  going  to  bring  on  me,  in  my  old  days, 
when  my  body  and  mind  had  given  way  until  I  could 
not  stand  trouble  as  I  could  have  done  in  past  days. 

My  daughter  Susan  died  in  1902  and  left  three 
children,  without  means,  which  we  have  reared.  My 
mother  died  at  my  home  in  1882.  Our  dear  boy,  John, 
died  in  1902.  I  have  had  many  trials  and  hardships 
to  endure  during  this  life,  but  the  good  Lord  has  bless- 
ed me  and  preserved  and  allowed  me  to  remain  on  this 
earth  to  the  advanced  age  that  I  have  now  reached, 
for  some  purpose  unknown  to  me. 


82 


CHAPTER  VII. 

In  the  year  1858  there  were  only  a  few  settlers  in 
the  hill  counties  south  of  the  Tennessee  River.  The 
country  was  inhabited  mostly  by  wild  animals  and 
birds;  such  as,  wild  turkeys  and  lesser  birds.  Deer 
were  plentiful,  while  some  bear,  a  good  many  wolves, 
foxes,  cats  and  catamounts  were  in  evidence.  The 
people  were  poor  and  agreat  many  of  them  were  only 
half  civilized.  There  were  practically  no  roads,  no 
schools  and  but  few  churches. 

The  land  belonged  to  the  U.  S.  Government,  and 
only  cost  the  settlers  twelve  and  one  half  cents  an  acre. 
Despite  the  cheapness  of  land  very  few  people  owned 
their  home,  as  they  preferred  to  build  on  Government 
lands  as  they  would  then  not  have  to  pay  taxes;  and 
they  had  no  idea  that  the  land  would  ever  be  taken  up. 
These  conditions  existed  mostly  from  the  line  of  Miss- 
issippi on  to  the  east  line  of  Georgia;  and  from  the 
mountains  south  of  the  Tennessee  River  to  the  coal 
and  iron  fields  in  and  around  the  city  of  Birmingham 
and  even  south  of  there.  There  being  no  Rail  Road 
south  of  the  M.&  O.  Rail  Road  in  this  state,  and  very 
few  public  roads,  the  population  was  sparse.  Even 
where  the  city  of  Birmingham  now  is  was  only  settled 
to  a  small  extent,  it  was  nothing  like  a  town,  there  was 
not  even  a  postoffice  nearer  than  Elyton. 

The  people  in  these  mountains  lived  mostly  on  game 
through  the  fall  and  winter;  and  in  the  spring  and 
summer  they  subsisted  mostly  on  milk.  Many  of  the 
old  settlers,  at  that  time,  would  use  dried  venison  in 
lieu  of  bread.  The  greater  part  of  them  only  had 
small  patches  of  cleared  land  and  would  only  plant 
some  small  patches  of  corn  and  a  few  potatoes.  A  very 
small  per  cent  of  them  would  raise  enough  to  subsist 
on. 

When  the  people  from  Georgia,  North  Carolina, 
and  Tennessee,  and  other  parts  began  to  move  in  and 
take  up  and  improve  the  land.   Many  of  the  old  settlers 

83 


failed  to  enter  their  lands  until  the  most  valuable  por- 
tions were  taken  up  and  settled  by  the  new  comers. 
They  then  had  to  take  up  and  settle  some  of  the  poor- 
est and  most  undesirable  places  or  move  to  other  parts, 
which  many  of  them  did.  The  class  of  people  who 
moved  in  would,  as  a  rule,  build  better  houses,  work 
out  and  open  roads,  build  churches,  pay  taxes  and 
build  up  the  country.  This  caused  the  game  to  become 
wild  and  scarce.  Too,  it  caused  the  old  settlers  to 
have  to  work  roads,  pay  taxes,  and  do  a  lot  of  thinga 
they  'Were  not  accustomed  to  doing,  so  they  went  to 
other  parts,  not  all,  but  a  good  portion  of  them  did. 

Not  many  of  these  old  settlers,  especially  in  Wins- 
ton County,  kept  a  horse,  but  almost  all  of  them  would 
keep  cattle,  as  they  could  get  them  through  the  winter 
on  the  range,  without  food.  When  the  grass  would 
start  up  in  the  spring  they  could  take  up  an  ox  and 
plow  their  little  patches  with  him  and  then  turn  him 
out  on  the  range,  after  putting  a  bell  on  him  so  they 
could  find  them  when  he  was  needed.  They  generally 
had  a  small  cart  or  wagon  to  do  their  hauling  and  to 
make  a  trip  to  the  Rail  Road  when  they  wanted  to. 
They  needed  it  to  haul  off  their  venison,  deer  skins, 
etc.,  and  to  bring  back  their  whiskey  and  necessities. 
I  have  seen  as  many  as  three  men  and  four  or  five  dogs 
along  with  a  small  pair  of  oxen  and  a  little  cart  on  their 
way  to  market. 

The  first  Rail  Road  that  was  ever  built  in  Alabama 
was  built  from  deep  water,  on  the  Tennessee  River, 
at  or  near  Tuscumbia,  around  above  the  Muscle  Shoals, 
to  Decatur.  This  was  to  accomodate  the  river  traffic. 
During  the  high  water,  boats  could  run  from  the  Ohio 
River,  over  the  Colbert  Shoals  on  the  Tennessee  River 
to  Tuscumbia;  and  a  line  of  small  boats  could  run  from 
Decatur  up  the  Tennessee  River  to  Knoxville,  Tennes- 
see. Thus  the  importance  of  this  Rail  Road  line  of 
about  forty  miles  to  connect  the  river  traffic,  which 
was  all  we  had  at  that  time.     I  think  that  Gen.  J.  B. 

84 


Rather  possibly  built  or  helped  to  build  this  line,  as  he 
told  the  writer  about  the  operation  of  this  line.  They 
used  what  was  then  called  spring  timber  to  lay  the 
rails  on,  instead  of  cross  tires  as  the  latter  had  not  been 
in  use  up  to  this  time.  Gen.  Rather,  who  operated  this 
road  and  helped  construct  it,  told  the  writer  that 
is  was  a  common  ;thing  to  run  off  of  the  track  ten  or 
fifteen  times,  in  making  the  trip  to  Decatur  and  back, 
from  Tuscumbia.  This  road  was  for  the  purpose  of 
transporting  the  river  traffic  around  Muscle  Shoals. 

Sometime  in  the  seventies  Henry  Habbler,  a  Ger- 
man, came  in  from  the  North  and  bought  a  lot  of  land, 
near  where  the  boats  landed  on  the  Tennessee  River, 
which  was  at  that  time  called  Tuscumbia  landing  and 
where  the  city  of  Sheffield  now  is.  Here  he  erected 
a  cotton  factory  to  make  cotton  yarn  from  seed  cotton. 
He  started  his  mill  and  made  a  good  quality  of  yarn. 
He  soon  found  that  he  could  not  operate  successfully, 
on  account  of  getting  seed  cotton  to  supply  his  demands. 
The  facts  were,  he  could  not  get  storage  room  for 
enough  seed  cotton  to  supply  his  demands  for  the  sea- 
son, and  too,  he  was  not  in  shape  to  finance  the  cost 
of  buying  the  seed  cotton  while  on  the  market,  to  sup- 
ply his  wants  in  order  to  keep  his  mill  going  through 
the  season.  So  on  account  of  these  and  other  condi- 
tions he  was  forced  to  abandon  the  enterprise,  which 
was  a  great  loss  to  him.  However,  along  in  the 
eighties,  I  do  not  remember  the  exact  date,  an  English 
syndicate,  backed  by  a  lot  of  capitalists  (mostly  from 
the  South)  undertook  the  building  of  a  Rail  Road  from 
the  Tennessee  River  to  Birmingham.  They  bought 
out  Mr.  Habbler's  interest  in  the  land  where  he  had 
built  his  mill,  and  they  then  started  the  city  of  Shef- 
field. They  proposed  to  build  iron  furnaces  and  start 
up  various  plants. 

They  advertised  long  and  extensively  and  when  the 
time  came,  men  with  money,  mostly  from  parts  of  the 
South,  North  and  East  were  there  with  their  money 

85 


to  make  investments.  On  the  night  before  the  sale  a 
crew  of  men  worked  all  night  to  finish  laying  the  rails 
from  the  M.  &  O.  Rail  Road  to  the  old  cotton  field,, 
which  was  to  be  Sheffield.  On  the  morning  of  the 
commencement  of  the  sale,  when  the  train  pulled  in 
the  prospectors  were  ready,  waiting  and  anxious  to 
buy  and  wanted  the  sale  to  start.  In  the  mean  time 
Mr.  Habbler,  the  former  owner,  had  erected  a  hotel 
to  help  entertain  the  host  of  attendants.  There  was 
also  a  bank  opened  up  in  the  old  cotton  field  in  order 
to  close  up  the  transactions  each  day. 

The  first  day  of  the  sale  the  lots  brought  huge 
prices,  much  more  than  any  one  expected,  and  the  sales 
were  large.  Many  anxious  buyers  held  back  until  the 
second  day  hoping  to  buy  cheaper;  but  the  lots  sold 
much  higher  than  on  the  previous  day.  They  con-^ 
tinned  to  tdvance  in  price  until  the  close  of  the  sale. 
Many  of  the  buyers  on  the  first  day  of  the  sale  would 
sell  out  their  purchases  at  enormous  profits  on  the 
next  day.  The  crowds  would  increase  from  day  to 
day  and  continued  to  do  so  during  the  sale.  A  great 
many  of  the  investors  started  in  building  on  and  im- 
priving  their  holdings.  Many  residences,  stores,  hotels 
and  bank  buildings  were  erected.  Iron  furnaces  were 
started  and  it  seemed  as  if  they  would  build  a  large 
city  at  once. 

(In  writing  up  these  thoughts  I  have  been  hindered 
so  much  from  one  cause  and  another  at  so  many  differ- 
ent times,  frequently  would  sit  down  and  write  and 
some  one  would  call  me  away  and  I  might  be  a  week 
getting  back  to  my  work  again.  I  had  likely  gotten  off 
of  the  subject  and  on  something  else,  or  left  off  before 
finishing,  and  something  may  have  been  repeated.  I 
do  not  know  as  my  eyesight  will  not  permit  me  to 
undertake  a  review). 

86 


I  was  about  fifty  years  in  the  mercantile  business 
but  kept  my  farming  interests  going  all  the  time.  I 
was  engaged  in  the  cotton  maunfacturing  business  for 
some  years.  I  was  a  railroad  contractor  for  something 
over  three  years  and  spent  some  four  winters  in  South- 
ern Texas,  farming,  building  and  speculating  in  land, 
stock,  etc.  I  traveled  in  the  East  while  engaged  in 
the  cotton  business.  A  detail  of  all  of  this  would  be 
tedious  to  get  up  and  uninteresting  to  anyone.  Suf- 
fice it  to  say  these  matters  combined  have  kept  me  too 
busy  and  too  much  on  hand  to  get  drunk  and 
while  away  my  time  in  idleness  and  unusefulness.  I 
have  always  had  something  to  do,  and  never  have  been 
able  to  catch  up  with  my  work. 


87 


««:**. 


m'-' 


ay 


A- 


18 


